So Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (a.k.a. BoJo) is the new prime minister of Britain. Where this leads, who can say? But boring it won’t be.
BoJo is the greatest English adventurer since Sir Walter Raleigh, and we know where that led (the chopping block).
For his womanizing, his casual regard for the facts and his at-times shambolic behaviour, he’s often compared with America’s Donald Trump. Though in fairness, he is on record as saying that Trump is “clearly out of his mind.”
Yet while just about every jab at him hits pay dirt, there are deeper waters here. Even his enemies (and they are legion) agree he has a brilliant mind.
At Eton, Britain’s most prestigious private school, he was described by his teachers as “fantastically able.”
On one occasion while holidaying in Greece, he asked a group of classics professors if he could join their Scrabble game. Although it was being played in Greek, Johnson beat them. Then did so again. And again. The boy was 10 years old.
Later, he went on to become president of Oxford University’s debating society, a role no one could imagine Donald Trump, with his depleted vocabulary, occupying.
Yet for all his brainpower, the man has frequently been his own worst enemy. He was hired by the London Times, but shortly thereafter fired for embellishing a story.
As Brussels correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, his columns were a riotous mix of anti-EU propaganda, scandalous storytelling and outright invention.
Sitting as an MP, he was dismissed from the shadow cabinet for lying about an affair.
And when he first stood at the door of No. 10 Downing St. as prime minister, the most pressing question on many minds was, will his girlfriend move in with him? In short, an unlikely ascent.
However he does possess one survival skill rare in politicians: The readiness to laugh at himself. An example: In 2010 a BBC interviewer told him: “Most politicians, as far as I can work out, are pretty incompetent, and then have a veneer of competence. You seem to do it the other way round.”
Johnson replied: “You can’t rule out the possibility that beneath the elaborately constructed veneer of a blithering idiot, there lurks an, er, blithering idiot.” (I’m obliged to Tom McTague of The Atlantic magazine for this anecdote.)
Which is to say, while his enemies have an entire armoury of weapons at their disposal, BoJo has the ability to laugh his way out of trouble.
Or at least that’s been his strategy to date. But at the pinnacle of power, will it still work?
For Johnson has crossed the Rubicon. Britain, he has declared, will leave the European Union by Oct. 31, with or without a deal.
Some consider this a fatal error. Certainly formidable obstacles stand in his way.
His caucus is divided. Parliament is divided. The country is divided.
Only the EU is unified — in its refusal to accept a compromise. And for obvious reasons. If Britain leaves, other countries will be tempted to follow.
So can BoJo carry it off? On the one hand, if anyone can, he can. He has exactly the right mix of optimism and ebullience (a tonic after Theresa May’s unrelenting gloom).
On the other hand, the naysayers in his party cannot be convinced by reason or logic. The only hope of silencing them is to generate an overwhelming tide of public support. And Johnson has only three months to do it. That might be mission impossible.
So much so indeed, that his best way forward might be to prorogue Parliament and settle the matter in its absence. This has been tried before.
In August 1939, Britain’s prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, dealt with ferocious opposition in Parliament by proroguing the House of Commons. He was only forced to call MPs back when Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and, a month later, invaded Poland.
However, this time might be different. The house recently passed a motion requiring the prime minister to bring before it any decision about Europe, before proceeding.
Is the motion binding? Traditionally, the power to prorogue lies with the PM. Yet there will be howls of fury if he persists.
And here a second difficulty arises. Should he do so, his decision will inevitably be appealed to the courts.
In the past, Britain’s judges have been deferential to Parliament. If they rule against him, the only practical option is to call an election and fight it out on the hustings.
If it comes to that, he does have one card to play. In the recent elections to the European parliament, the Tories were crushed. They gained just nine per cent of the vote in Britain, and came in fifth — the party’s worst showing since its formation in the 1830s.
If Conservative MPs cannot close ranks and present a united front, they risk going the way of Gladstone’s once mighty Liberal party, which collapsed as a new left-wing option arose — the Labour Party.
The same threat exists here. Nigel Farage’s Brexit party, which cleaned up in the European parliamentary elections, stands ready to present a united, right-of-centre alternative if the Tories waver.
No doubt this will be Johnson’s message to his colleagues: We can all hang together, or many of you will hang separately.
But my guess is feelings are running so high on every side, there will be no compromise solution.
So can BoJo accomplish what no Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher has done, take his case to the people, crush Labour and make the Tory party his own?
The latter part is what counts. It’s no good getting re-elected if a fair chunk of his caucus remains resolutely pro-EU.
He not only has to win. He needs such a decisive victory that even those Tory MPs who despise him are humbled into silence.
If he succeeds, it will be a brilliant victory. If he fails, his premiership will be over in a meagre 100 days.
