20 June 2016
Boris After All?
A political kedgeree.
By John Watson
In the case of St Paul it was a vision on the road to Damascus. In my case it was a particularly well prepared kedgeree. Still, the result was the same, a change of view, a new perspective. From sitting down to lunch believing that Johnson should be withdrawn from the Conservative leadership race on the grounds of irresponsibility and general fecklessness, I got up again wondering if he was really such a bad idea after all. Of course it wasn’t just the cooking, the right amount of haddock pepped up with a smidgen of mustard or curry powder; nor was it the refreshing Pinot Gris which accompanied it. It was the way that my companions talked about the painful experience we have been through with Mrs May.
That isn’t to say that her agreement was other than sensible. Probably it was the best that could be achieved under the circumstances; but once it had been voted down the process of trimming it here and there to try to compromise with ever more aggressive opponents has turned out to be particularly fruitless and humiliating. Mrs May tried to break the Brexit logjam by adjusting her position to make it acceptable to a Commons majority as well as to the EU, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating and it certainly hasn’t worked.
Until the kedgeree I had thought that the Conservative party should look for someone with proven administrative ability as its leader. That left two names at the head of the list: Jeremy Hunt who has run health with a firmness which has left him hated by many medics; and Michael Gove who is a real reformer and has done particularly well at Justice and the Department of the Environment. Good clever men both. Perhaps they could refashion the May agreement in a way which make it acceptable across the House.
It is when you read those last words that you become very depressed. Hunt and Gove are able enough, probably more subtle and proven administrators than Mrs May, but in the end they will face the same problems that she did. Why would they not get ground down into the same political hole? Refashioning, adjusting, amending and trying to negotiate a breakthrough, we have tried all that and it has got us nowhere so the time has come to change approach.
Until now, our negotiating stance with the EU has been highly conciliatory, perhaps in part because we feel a certain embarrassment at having let them down and have worked on the basis that if we respect their sensitivities they will respect ours. It hasn’t worked quite like that, particularly in relation to the Irish border where the Republic (egged on, no doubt, by the Commission) has created red lines over customs control rather than working with us to devise controls which had no significant effect on the local population. The result: a sort of fishing line under which we could be kept in the Customs Union for as long as the EU chose.
Now we need to change tack. Rather than trying to mitigate the problems of withdrawal through administrative changes, we need to recognise that the problem has to be solved politically, even if that involves damaging our own prosperity. Someone has to grasp the nettle and swing popular support behind a path which is fraught with risk. Out of the present generation of political leaders (including those from other parties too) only Boris can do that, so Boris it had better be. Of course it may all go pear-shaped but sometimes risks have to be taken and there are moments when it is better to break out and take the risk (in this case of a ‘no deal’ departure) than continue down a painful path which leads nowhere.
Who knows what a Boris premiership would be like? Would he keep good people near him and listen to what they say? Would he ride the ship of state over a precipice and into chaos? I don’t know and nor do you, but as I rose from my lunch I realised the risk had to been taken because the alternative is too awful to contemplate. I was left with one serious uncertainty, however, on which I have been reflecting ever since. If the kedgeree had that effect on my views, what would have happened if I had ordered a vindaloo?
