How it really will be27 Jul 2019 08:40
Johnson has been theatrically critical of Theresa May’s approach to Brexit, but he seems to be repeating exactly the same mistakes. He has made a series of contradictory promises to different people and his bluff is about to be called. As soon as he gets into the room with serious politicians they will confront him with the logic of his position and he will have no answers. Johnson’s mixture of bluster and bull**** is fine in the public domain, but in the quiet of the airy office on the third floor of the German chancellery it will count for nothing.
When Johnson returns empty-handed from his European tour he will – given his lack of a working parliamentary majority for a no-deal Brexit – face two choices. He can go either for a general election or a referendum. Although the latter would be the right choice for the country, it looks likely he will go for the former. The polls will show him that with the progressive vote split, with Labour down to 20% and the Lib Dems at 20%,, he could win a landslide in the first past the post system with an electoral understanding – even an informal one – with Nigel Farage. And he will know that if he waits too long into next year for an election, the recession will have begun to bite.
For those of us who find it hard to stomach the idea of five years of a Johnson-Faragist government and the hardest of Brexits, the only possible way of stopping it is a coalition of progressive forces, from disenchanted moderate Tories to disgusted moderate Labour plus the Lib Dems and others, running on a common platform with the aim of forming a government of national unity.
• Jonathan Powell was Tony Blair’s chief of staff from 1995 to 2007
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