The world woke up last Thursday to find that the UK’s new Prime Minister, Theresa May, had made Boris Johnson the new Foreign Secretary. Granted, now we have proof that office’s stature is diminished: Johnson will have to share Chevening, traditionally the foreign secretary’s official mansion, with the secretaries of state for Brexit and for international trade.
Still, Johnson! A man as irresponsible as Bertie Wooster, the PG Wodehouse character whose diction Johnson imitates. (Brexit: gosh, what a lark, chaps!) No wonder the rest of Europe couldn’t decide whether to snigger or to fume.
Well, maybe Europe – not least us, on this offshore rock – should do neither. How about taking May’s decision seriously? Actually recognise that the reasoning that led to the choice owes a lot to a political affliction widely shared in Europe and the US.
The strictly Westminster calculus in May’s mind has been recognised by practically everyone, even those who will not admit to it. May wants the post-Brexit negotiations to be firmly in the hands of leading Brexiteers so that if – or, rather, when – they can’t deliver the goods they promised, they cannot stand on the sidelines, jeer the hardworking negotiators, and say they could have done better.
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, will have just been informed that the fond idea he had earlier this year – that the UK could negotiate separate trade deals with individual EU member states – is just impossible.
Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, will find out how practically difficult it is to get the rest of the world to sign free trade treaties before Brexit is finalised. (Why should his counterparts rush when they’re not as needy? When the final Brexit deal could have a material impact on their own deal?)
Everyone understands that May has a slender Commons majority. Perhaps fewer understand just how virulent and large (at any rate, large enough) is the Europhobic component of the Tory parliamentary group. And just how obdurate.
You don’t have to be privy to the unnecessary grief they gave David Cameron as prime minister. It’s enough to have followed the immediate aftermath of Andrea Leadsom’s withdrawal from the Tory leadership race. One of the men telling the TV cameras how sorry he felt was Sir Edward Leigh, an MP in the business of opposing his own prime ministers on Europe for the past 23 years, ever since John Major sacked him over his opposition to the Maastricht Treaty.
Like Leigh, there are 85 others who thought backing Andrea Leadsom for the leadership was a good thing. It’s irrelevant whether it’s because they are so deluded as to think she’s the second coming of Margaret Thatcher, or, because they thought they could manipulate Leadsom and thus get to run the country themselves.
Arguably every prime minister has to handle a parliamentary group half of which has delusions of grandeur, a third of which is incompetent, a fifth mad, and a fourth seething with resentment because it feels under-promoted. (Multiple membership is permitted in this fraternity open to the talents.)
As for the handful who have a true keen political intelligence, given half a chance they’re all scheming for the leader’s job. May knows this. She did her own share of scheming for the top job.
Any risks Theresa May has taken aren’t any greater than the ones she was already facing from a Tory civil war that had already destroyed three Conservative prime ministers
May, however, is in an unusual position. Politicians are often saved from themselves by the prospect of losing their seat – something that is likely to happen if their reckless or disloyal behaviour makes the Opposition stronger. Those conditions no longer apply in the post-2015 UK.
The weakness of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn – very few, even among his own supporters, see him as a future prime minister – has undermined the self-discipline of their opponents. Going out on a limb has fewer electoral risks when your principal adversary has little chance of winning over the electorate.
Right now, the UK political environment is providing safety for buccaneers. Or, at least, it’s making it easier for them to think of themselves as safe. It’s a thread running through Cameron’s last months as prime minister.
He himself thought he couldn’t lose the referendum, which is why, even at the last minute, he gambled on it. He had already won two referendums (on the voting system and Scotland) and a general election against the odds. He and his campaign advisors believed they had mastered how to frame the issues to make them centre on economic risk.
What he didn’t calculate was that he wasn’t the only political buccaneer on the block. And that was careless. Writing in The Conversation in February, Charles Lees (a professor of politics at Bath) showed why Johnson would eventually opt to champion Brexit even if he thought he’d be on the losing side.
Why? Because, among other reasons, Labour’s weakness meant he could afford it:
“One of the interesting consequences of the Labour Party’s current problems is that David Cameron’s status as an electoral asset – more popular in the country than the party he leads – is less important than usual. Without meaningful opposition, backbench MPs are less reliant on their leader to keep hold of their seats. This makes Cameron more vulnerable to a leadership challenge after the referendum, regardless of the outcome, and he may well resign if the public votes to leave.”
It’s no doubt Labour’s weakness that tempted Michael Gove to shake off his loyalty to Cameron, a personal friend. And, seeing that not all Tory Brexit supporters are boneheaded, it’s also Labour’s weakness that tempted some of them to chance having Leadsom as leader. After all, she’d be going head to head with Corbyn.
May didn’t need to read Lees or be familiar with the intricacies of game theory. She’d have absorbed the political spirit of the times by osmosis. Hence why this politician, known for her caution, decided to make the world less safe for the buccaneers in her political party. Any risks she herself has taken aren’t any greater than the ones she was already facing from a Tory civil war that had already destroyed three Conservative prime ministers.
The phenomenon of the safe buccaneer isn’t restricted to the UK. Not in a world where Trump’s excesses carry reduced costs in the face of Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses.
Certainly not in a Europe where France has the most unpopular president since polls were kept. Where Italy’s oldest active political party is the 25-year-old Lega Nord and where, if Italy comes economically apart at the seams (not a remote scenario), Italians might feel they have little else left to lose. Not in a Europe where many voters are ready to give the far right a flutter.
The thing about safe buccaneers, beginning with Trump and Johnson, is that they themselves usually are safe. Their wealth pads their fall. It’s the rest of us who’ll end up with broken bones.
ranierfsadni@europe.com