New Prime Minister’s time in office could be short as chaos looms - William Wallace

THREE years after the referendum on European Union membership, can Boris Johnson – the man who promised us before the vote that negotiating a future relationship with our European neighbours would be easy and quick – now sort out the hard choices that have defeated Theresa May? And can he really get what he promises from Brussels by the end of October, the platform on which he expects to become Prime Minister?
Can Boris Johnson deliver Brexit by October 31?Can Boris Johnson deliver Brexit by October 31?
Can Boris Johnson deliver Brexit by October 31?

Boris Johnson, with David Davis and Liam Fox, formed the team that Theresa May placed in charge of the negotiation in 2016. None of them had any clear plan for withdrawal, let alone for what sort of future relationship the UK should agree with our neighbours.

Boris Johnson, more than any of his colleagues, intensely irritated ministers in other governments, by his lack of understanding of the issues or the interests of those he was negotiating with. He will find it particularly hard to persuade other governments to reopen the withdrawal agreement that Mrs May negotiated. They sympathise with Theresa May, but have no goodwill for Boris Johnson.

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Lord Wallace of Saltaire is a Lib Dem peer.Lord Wallace of Saltaire is a Lib Dem peer.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire is a Lib Dem peer.

All candidates for the Conservative leadership – except Rory Stewart – gave the impression that we will have finished with Brexit if and when we leave the EU on October 31. But the day after a no-deal Brexit, the British government would need to be back in Brussels, negotiating a whole range of detailed agreements on borders, air transport, police cooperation, regulation of medical supplies and data exchange to replace the framework British ministers since Margaret Thatcher have developed within the EU over the past 40 years.

The Dutch, French, Belgian and Irish governments have all made careful preparations for how to handle the people, goods and information crossing their borders if the UK crashes out in four months’ time. But Conservative ministers have obsessed about the Irish backstop instead.

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Deal or no-deal, the new Prime Minister will take over a country in economic and political crisis. Car production has fallen by 45 per cent in the past year, with new investment stopped and plants closing. Economic growth has almost stopped. The Government has already spent nearly £5bn preparing for the disruption of a hard Brexit. Philip Hammond, as Chancellor, is holding a financial reserve of £26bn against the loss of tax revenues and production that a disorderly Brexit might lead to – far more than the £350m a week Boris Johnson once promised would be put into the NHS and so on.

Boris Johnson, the former Foreign Secretary, is favourite to become Britain's next Prime Minister.Boris Johnson, the former Foreign Secretary, is favourite to become Britain's next Prime Minister.
Boris Johnson, the former Foreign Secretary, is favourite to become Britain's next Prime Minister.

Worse, the deadlock is now turning into a constitutional crisis. Boris Johnson and others who campaigned before the referendum to ‘restore Parliamentary sovereignty’ are now looking for ways of avoiding Parliament in the push to leave the EU.

Our new Prime Minister, elected only by the 160,000 Conservative Party members, ought then to make sure that he can command a majority of the House of Commons.

But Conservatives are hoping to avoid any vote before Parliament rises for the summer – and some have suggested it would be better if the Commons doesn’t return until mid-October, too late to challenge the Prime Minister’s Brexit strategy. There’s wilder talk among some Conservatives of letting Northern Ireland and Scotland go, leaving England on its own pretending to be an independent global power.

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There’s been hardly any discussion in the British debate about how much the world outside Europe has become more dangerous since 2016. Russia and China have become more authoritarian, and more hostile towards Western democracy. Under President Trump, the USA has attacked international institutions, and is close to conflict with Iran.

Even International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, who promised us that the UK economy would flourish outside the EU by trading under the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), has now admitted that US protectionism and Chinese state capitalism pose an existential threat to the WTO.

There are a whole range of urgent domestic issues which have stalled for the whole of Theresa May’s premiership. The promise she made on the doorstep of No.10 to tackle the ‘burning injustices’ of our society is unfulfilled; the gap between North and South remains wide. We know little about Boris Johnson’s domestic agenda, less still about his economic policies beyond cutting taxes for the well-off. That may not matter. He has made the promise of leaving the EU on October 31 the theme of his leadership campaign, without showing how he will win the agreement of other governments or the approval of Parliament.

If we face chaos and confusion, under a leader who exudes optimism but cannot deliver his easy promises, his prime ministership will be much shorter than that of his predecessor.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire is a Lib Dem peer. He was a minister in David Cameron’s coalition government.