05/09/2019

Dúvidas (279) – Irá o Brexit consumar-se? (XV) - At least he has guts


«Boris Johnson has already decided on his election message: vote for me and get Brexit, vote for anyone else and get Jeremy Corbyn. He will ask voters: who can you imagine negotiating best with Brussels? Me, or Corbyn?

Clear as the message may be, the Prime Minister is risking everything in this contest. He could lose it all: Brexit, his premiership, the party, the works. He could go down in history as the shortest-lived occupant of No. 10. Or he could win, take this country out of the EU, then realign and reshape British politics. As one of those intimately involved in the decision to go for an election puts it: ‘It is a massive gamble. Nobody knows how it will pan out.’ One secretary of state admits that the outcome of the election is ‘totally unknowable. It doesn’t just depend on our performance but on what happens on the left. If they coalesce behind either Labour or the Liberals, we’re stuffed.’

This desire to roll the dice shows that Boris wants to be in power, not just in office. He went for an election after realising that there was no way to block the rebel bill to delay Brexit: if that were passed, he thinks, it would turn him into a puppet PM on 19 October. At cabinet on Monday, the new Leader of the House, Jacob Rees-Mogg, told ministers that he had looked at every route to stop the rebels, every trick in the parliamentary book, and hadn’t found anything that would work. He joked that the idea of impeaching the Speaker was a bit arcane even for him.»

James Forsight no Spectator

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