With Boris now PM, will Brexit impasse be broken through?

New British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is respected by many Kurds, who remember his historic visit with British-Kurdish MP Nadhim Zahawi to Erbil in January 2015 when the then London Mayor was famously pictured holding an AK-47 alongside a Peshmerga fighter. It was a clear sign of solidarity with the Kurds who were a few months into their resistance to Daesh (Islamic State). The picture, a great boost to the Kurds, spoke volumes.

Back home, Johnson is highly polarizing – people either despise or adore him, but few ignore him. Johnson is a long published writer, and his eye for memorable word-spinning has sometimes got him into hot water. This, along with what friends would call a colourful and larger-than-life personality - and what others would describe in terms far less flattering -  means Boris is a household name.

I first met him 19 years ago at the offices of The Spectator, a UK political weekly, where he was editor. He interviewed a friend, Sean O’Callaghan, who was a senior IRA commander before he became an invaluable informer for the Irish and British states. Johnson conducted a deeply informed dialogue about Northern Ireland.

Opponents should not under-estimate him. Johnson wrote the case for and against Brexit before he made his mind up and joined the Brexit campaign, which may not have succeeded without his endorsement and advocacy. Writing up both cases was seen as opportunism, but I saw it as a necessary intellectual exercise to understand all arguments.

It's certainly going to take great effort to resolve the UK’s Brexit crisis within the first 100 days of his premiership. Johnson hit the ground running with a brutal reconfiguration of his ministerial team, and has injected a new energy into Conservative politics and the government after years of drift and defeat.

If willpower were the only issue, then Brexit might be done with minimal disruption. But to do so by the end of October is a huge ask when the EU maintains that it will not budge on what it sees as its red line issues. The question of whether a Johnson government can persuade the EU that it needs to compromise to avoid a No Deal hangs in the air.

The ranks of MPs who seek to resist any Brexit without a deal remain large and has been expanded by those who either left the government or were sacked. The former Chancellor, Philip Hammond and other former ministers are apparently co-operating with Labour to stop a No Deal exit. Some Conservatives would even bring their government down to stop it.

The government also has a wafer-thin majority that could evaporate with just a handful of defections. This is why many observers are convinced that the Johnson operation is all about shifting the blame for No Deal on to an intransigent EU and then securing an early election to increase his parliamentary majority.

Many Conservatives also believe they can thump Labour because its leader Jeremy Corbyn has clearly lost much of his authority. Corbyn built his brand on large rallies, which showed him surrounded by enthusiastic and young people. Last week, he organised a rally in Parliament Square to demand an early election and it only attracted 500 people. Conservative calculations about an early election also revolve around the fear that any new Labour leader could make the party more competitive.

But the timing of any early election depends on progress with Brexit. The Conservatives will find it difficult to go to the polls if they haven’t resolved the issue, or are seen as about to do so, because that would present an open goal to the hardline Brexit party, which could unseat many Conservative MPs.

I would not rule out a further referendum between No Deal and Remain cations. Johnson’s influential chief strategist was the moving force behind Brexit with a low and cunning genius that led to the unexpected approval of Brexit in the 2016 referendum. His original idea was that there would be a second referendum to approve the terms of a deal.

Johnson has also proposed a series of eye-catching domestic policies to answer the need for investment and to stop Brexit being the only and most boring show in town. But turning the promise of billions of pounds for left-behind areas into reality takes time to get going.

PM Johnson also needs to shore up the other single market and Union – “the awesome foursome” of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland that form the UK. A majority in Scotland voted to remain and Brexit could lead to a further referendum on secession from the UK, whose first take was defeated by 55-45% in 2014. Brexit could swing the balance.

The people of Northern Ireland could also vote in a border poll if the UK government judges it likely that a majority wishes that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the UK and form part of a united Ireland. If Brexit causes a hard border and disrupts Ireland’s all-island economy, it becomes much easier to envisage a demand for unification. The break-up of the UK is not something that sits easily with any leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I have said it before - only to find crunch decisions were delayed - but the coming weeks will surely be the most decisive in British politics for decades. So much revolves around the man who as a child decided he wanted to be world King. All options are risky. Johnson could become the shortest-lived Prime Minister ever, or reshape Britain for generations.

Gary Kent is the Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) and a Fellow of Soran University. He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com.  The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.

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