LONDON — Boris Johnson, Britain’s brash former foreign secretary, on Tuesday won the contest to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May, with his party handing the job of resolving the country’s three-year Brexit nightmare to one of the architects of the project, and one of the country’s most polarizing politicians.
Mr. Johnson beat Jeremy Hunt, his successor as foreign secretary, in the battle for the leadership of Britain’s governing Conservative Party, winning by the substantial margin of 66 percent of the postal vote held among its membership. Although the Conservatives’ working majority in Parliament is very small, it appears to be enough to ensure that Mr. Johnson will succeed Mrs. May as prime minister on Wednesday.
He would take office at one of the most critical moments in Britain’s recent history, immediately facing the toughest challenge of his career, to manage his nation’s exit from the European Union in little more than three months. But his policy swerves, lack of attention to detail and contradictory statements leave the country guessing how things will unfold.
“I know that there will be people around the place who will question the wisdom of your decision, and there may even be some people here who still wonder quite what they have done,” Mr. Johnson told the party meeting in London on Tuesday at which the vote results were announced.
While he has a mandate from his party’s dues-paying members, the hard facts that brought down Mrs. May have not changed: deep divisions on Brexit among Conservatives in Parliament, implacable opposition from other parties, and the insistence of European officials that they will make no major concessions.
Mr. Johnson has doubled down lately on Brexit, promising to take Britain out of the European Union by the Oct. 31 deadline “do or die,” if necessary risking the economic dislocation of leaving without any agreement, rather than seek an extension.
[Here’s what you need to know about the possibility of a no-deal Brexit under Boris Johnson.]
“We’re going to get Brexit done on Oct. 31, we’re going to take advantage of all the opportunities that it will bring in a new spirit of can-do, and we’re once again going to believe in ourselves,” he promised on Tuesday. “Like some slumbering giant, we’re going to rise and ping off the guy-ropes of doubt and negativity.”
Mrs. May and Mr. Johnson will visit Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, for her assent to the transition. The short journey from Parliament to the palace will be the culmination of a colorful career for Mr. Johnson, a former journalist whose ambition as a child was to become “world king,” who wrote a biography of his hero Winston Churchill, and who has been praised by President Trump.
Listen to ‘The Daily’: The Making of Boris Johnson
Campaigning for Brexit helped put Boris Johnson in position to become the British prime minister. Soon, he may have to figure out how to deliver it.transcript
Listen to ‘The Daily’: The Making of Boris Johnson
Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Michael Simon Johnson, Lynsea Garrison and Adizah Eghan, and edited by Lisa Tobin
Campaigning for Brexit helped put Boris Johnson in position to become the British prime minister. Soon, he may have to figure out how to deliver it.
michael barbaro
From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” After trying and failing to deliver Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May will resign this week. Today: The story of how the man expected to succeed her made Brexit, and how Brexit is now making him prime minister. It’s Monday, July 22.
archived recording (theresa may)
I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honor of my life to hold. I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.
[music]
michael barbaro
Sarah, catch me up on what happened after that moment when Theresa May announces that she’s stepping down.
sarah lyall
Well, it touched off an immediate mad scramble over who would replace her. And under party rules, the next party leader is chosen only by members of the Conservative Party. And it’s they who will be selecting the next leader of the party and thus the next prime minister of the U.K.
michael barbaro
And who is expected to be at this point?
sarah lyall
At this point, it’s a shoo-in for Boris Johnson. Unless something bizarre happens, he will be the next prime minister.
archived recording
[MUSIC]
michael barbaro
And Sarah, who is Boris Johnson?
archived recording
He is the Conservative M.P. for Henley. He’s editor of The Spectator. And it seems he’s 92 times better than me at hosting topical news quizzes. Ladies and gentlemen, Boris Johnson. [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
sarah lyall
He is a celebrity politician.
archived recording (boris johnson)
This is a totally ecumenical cross-party venture, my friends. Now, this is a once in a lifetime chance.
sarah lyall
And he is extraordinarily visible by the way he looks. He has a massive shock of bright white hair.
archived recording
And how long have you been cutting your own hair? [LAUGHTER]
archived recording (boris johnson)
I think that was a low blow.
sarah lyall
He’s incredibly articulate.
archived recording (boris johnson)
Are you saying they haven’t the guts to put questions to me? Great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies.
sarah lyall
He’s incredibly funny. He’s incredibly charming.
archived recording
Have you snorted cocaine? [LAUGHTER]
archived recording (boris johnson)
I tried to.
archived recording
You’ve tried to snort cocaine?
archived recording (boris johnson)
Unsuccessfully, a long time ago. [LAUGHTER]
archived recording
Sir, what are you thinking?
archived recording (boris johnson)
I sneezed.
archived recording
What was unsuccessful about it?
archived recording (boris johnson)
I sneezed. [LAUGHTER]
sarah lyall
He’s also incredibly — what the Brits would call shambolic. He doesn’t get to places on time. He’s disorganized. He’s ill-prepared. He can’t remember what meeting he’s at and what he’s supposed to be doing.
archived recording (boris johnson)
We’ve got a fantastic guy called — oh, he’s brilliant. It’s either — he’s a superb man — Sterling, Gurling, something like that. What’s he called? Come on, what is it again? Tell me the name. Come on.
archived recording
You should get it. No, serious, it’s not my job to —
archived recording (boris johnson)
Stop sitting there like a great, big, fat Buddha and tell me the name of this guy.
michael barbaro
Sarah, when I think of British government, and certainly when I think about the prime minister, I think of a certain level of kind of stuffy formality and sobriety. How does this person that you’re describing, how does that person become the first in line to become prime minister?
sarah lyall
So there’s really two ways to look at him. He is all those things. He is bumbling. He is shambolic. But at the same time, a lot of his moves over his career have been quite calculated. It’s often been in the service of either getting attention or getting power. So for example, he started as a journalist.
michael barbaro
What was his reputation as a journalist?
sarah lyall
Well, very entertaining. He’s really funny and inaccurate. And he would write articles about the European Union, where he’d exaggerate and sort of cast the European Union as this terrible bureaucracy, trying to take things away from citizens. It was sort of the stuff that made no sense. It was like, the E.U. was going to regulate condoms and make them all one-size-fits-all.
michael barbaro
[LAUGHS]
sarah lyall
And it was going to ban shrimp-flavored potato chips.
michael barbaro
And it was going to really do neither.
sarah lyall
No, it was going to do neither. And the other journalists who were covering the same things would be yelled at by their editors, who would say, why aren’t you covering the same stuff Boris is? And he set a tone for the coverage of the European Union. It was just wrong. And when he was asked about it, he said, it doesn’t matter what the facts are that you marshal in service of that thesis. The thesis is right.
archived recording
[MUSIC]
sarah lyall
And he talked about it once. He went on a program called “Desert Island Discs,” which is a BBC program where you talk about your favorite music.
archived recording
My castaway this week is a politician and a journalist, prone to getting into scrapes, a word that suits his rather Wodehousian image.
sarah lyall
And he was talking about his coverage. And he said —
archived recording (boris johnson)
See, everything I wrote from Brussels I find was sort of — I was just chucking these rocks over the garden wall, and there’s an amazing crash from the greenhouse next door over in England. Everything I wrote from Brussels were having this amazing, explosive effect on the Tory Party. And it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of power.
archived recording
But this made your reputation as a journalist, didn’t it?
sarah lyall
It started to inform the Tory Party’s attitude toward Europe. And so he was welcomed by them as someone really telling the truth about Europe for the first time.
michael barbaro
So he was finding an audience among Britain’s conservatives?
sarah lyall
Yes.
michael barbaro
And was he himself actually a conservative?
sarah lyall
Yeah, he was always a conservative. But there are different strains in the Conservative Party. And at least in the beginning, it seemed his biggest motivation was to get in Parliament, and that way to start building a base toward having more power. But at that point, it was sort of unclear what his convictions were. And as he said in an interview at the time, when he was asked what he would resign over, if there was any principle that would be so important to him, he said, “I’m a bit of an optimist, so it doesn’t tend to occur to me to resign. I tend to think of a way of Sellotaping everything together and quietly finding a way through if I can.” In other words, he would sort of do what it took to kind of paper over the edges in order to get through it in order to remain in office.
michael barbaro
Which is another way of saying, when it comes to his convictions, they are malleable.
sarah lyall
Yes. And that’s illustrated again when he runs for mayor in 2008, because he refashions himself then. He positions himself as a liberal, urbane man of multicultural London. He’s pro-business, but he’s pro-immigrants.
archived recording (boris johnson)
If you’ve been here for more than 10 to 12 years, I’m afraid the authorities no longer really pursue you. They give up.
archived recording
So should we have that amnesty?
archived recording (boris johnson)
Well, why not be honest about what is going on?
archived recording
So have that amnesty?
archived recording (boris johnson)
Yeah, absolutely.
sarah lyall
Like, he’s this really old-fashioned conservative, who went to Oxford, speaks in a really posh accent, which isn’t supposed to go over well with regular people. And regular people love him. He would walk through the streets of London and people would sort of yell, hey, Boris. Women found him really attractive.
archived recording
Boris says what he means, and he delivers.
sarah lyall
There’s just something about him that made him a really good candidate. So then he gets elected mayor, which was actually an amazing feat. A conservative would never get elected in London, and it was based purely on personal popularity.
archived recording (boris johnson)
I do not, for one minute, believe that this election shows that London has been transformed overnight into a conservative city.
[music]
sarah lyall
And then he continued with these sort of funny statements. And he also showed to the world a kind of physical comedy.
archived recording
He got himself into pretty deep water today.
sarah lyall
So he once was at the Thames doing something, and he fell into the river.
archived recording (speaker 1)
Oh, then really badly.
archived recording (speaker 2)
And this is the best bit. This is the best bit here. She pulls down the volunteer with him.
sarah lyall
And then what a lot of people saw was, during the 2012 Olympics, he was trying to promote Britain or promote London or something, and he went down this zip wire. And he got stuck in a zip wire, and he had this sort of wedgie. And he was stuck in the middle.
archived recording (speaker 1)
Hey, Boris, you’re going the wrong way.
archived recording (speaker 2)
This way.
archived recording (speaker 1)
Boris, this way.
sarah lyall
He looked so ridiculous. Look at his little blue hat. He’s wearing the most ill-fitting outfit. Oop, it just stopped. And he’s dangling.
archived recording (boris johnson)
It’s going well. It’s very, very well-organized. What they do — get me a ladder.
michael barbaro
He’s really kind of hamming it up.
sarah lyall
Yes, he is.
michael barbaro
And the crowd beneath him, it seems kind of charmed.
sarah lyall
Look at them all taking pictures of him, laughing. He makes people feel good. He really does.
archived recording (boris johnson)
Can you get me a rope? [LAUGHTER] Get me a rope, O.K.?
sarah lyall
Any other politician, that would have been the end, to be photographed like that. But he turned it into a plus. He turned it into a virtue, and people thought it was hilarious. And they thought he was cuddly and cute. The thing about when he was mayor is the first time he had that much power, and he was fantastic figurehead. He was a fantastic front man.
archived recording (boris johnson)
Finally, you have brought home a great truth about our country, that when we put our mind to it, there is absolutely nothing that this country cannot achieve.
sarah lyall
He was not a details person. He showed up late to things. He was ill-prepared. He wouldn’t read anything. He didn’t know about the policies. And luckily, the mayor of London isn’t that important a job, really. He doesn’t have a lot of responsibility, so he couldn’t really mess it up. But he was not a great mayor.
michael barbaro
So Boris Johnson has been a consistent source of amusement and controversy.
sarah lyall
Boris is constantly getting himself into trouble and constantly finding a way out of it through basically charm and bluster and an ability to talk himself out of any situation.
michael barbaro
And what trouble does he get himself out of?
sarah lyall
Well, there’s been a lot of trouble with women. He fathered a child with someone other than his wife while he was mayor of London and managed to never really have to discuss it publicly. When he was editor of The Spectator, he had an affair with one of his employees, who got pregnant, wrote about it. He denied in the beginning he’d had the affair. He lied to the journalists who asked. He lied to the prime minister. He got fired from his job. And somehow he got out of that, too. And it started to become clear that his disheveled, bumbling persona was calculated. And people have said — and I’ve seen it, too — before he goes on TV, he’ll run his hands through his hair to make it look messier, as if he couldn’t be bothered to ever brush it. He wants to look like that. And someone recently told this amazing story about how Boris came to speak at some kind of civic meeting, or a meeting of some industry group, and arrived five minutes late, right before he was supposed to speak. And sort of got up and looked and said, where am I speaking, what group is this, and told these anecdotes, and how he totally snowed the crowd. The crowd thought it was hilarious. They loved him. And the guy was really happy he pulled it off. Until he saw Boris do the exact same thing at a totally different group some months later, the exact same thing. He came late. He said, where am I? He told the same anecdotes, as if it was just off the top of his head.
michael barbaro
And in fact, it was a routine.
sarah lyall
It was a routine. It was a comedy routine designed to promote this view of him as this disheveled, bumbling person who could sort of pull it out at the last minute. He wants to seem that way.
michael barbaro
So a lot of this is an act. It’s kind of political theater.
sarah lyall
Exactly. And during that whole time, when people asked him, did he want to be prime minister, what was he going to do next? He would always slough it off with what looked like more of an act.
archived recording
Is there a possibility you could become prime minister?
archived recording (boris johnson)
I think that that is vanishing. I’ve about as much chance of being reincarnated as an olive. [LAUGHTER]
[music]
sarah lyall
And so meanwhile, though, he is quietly consolidating his popularity and preparing in his head somehow a way to challenge the prime minister, David Cameron. He’s way more popular than David Cameron, though he’s just an M.P. at this point. And the question is, how would he get there? What would he do? And then finally, in 2016, he sees a chance.
michael barbaro
And what is that chance?
sarah lyall
The chance is Brexit.
michael barbaro
We’ll be right back. So Sarah, pick us up where we left off. It’s 2016, and you said that Boris Johnson sees his chance to become prime minister. What’s happening at that moment?
archived recording (david cameron)
We are approaching one of the biggest decisions this country will face in our lifetimes, whether to remain in a reformed European Union or to leave.
sarah lyall
So it was then that the prime minister, David Cameron, called the referendum known as Brexit over whether Britain would leave the European Union.
archived recording (david cameron)
The choice goes to the heart of the kind of country we want to be and the future that we want for our children.
sarah lyall
He and his government were pro-Remain.
archived recording (david cameron)
My recommendation is clear. I believe that Britain will be safer, stronger and better off in a reformed European Union.
sarah lyall
And everyone assumed that the country felt the same way. And he assumes that all his allies in the Conservative Party will follow along with him —
michael barbaro
Including Johnson.
sarah lyall
— including Johnson, to campaign to remain. So Johnson was one of the people who was supposed to support him. And at the very last minute —
archived recording (boris johnson)
We have a chance, actually, to do something. I have a chance, actually, to do something.
sarah lyall
Boris became head of the Leave campaign.
archived recording (boris johnson)
I would like to see a new relationship, based more on trade, on cooperation, but as I say, with much less of this supranational element. So that’s where I’m coming from.
archived recording
Boris, if that’s really what you’ve thought all along, why have you kept your party waiting for such a long time?
archived recording (boris johnson)
The truth is that it has been agonizingly difficult.
michael barbaro
Is it clear at this moment whether Boris Johnson actually wants to leave the E.U.?
sarah lyall
Well, he wrote a famous editorial on the day he made this announcement of how he felt about it, saying, we should leave the E.U. Britain should leave the E.U. But it turned out later he had written an opposing editorial saying the exact opposite thing. It was only at the last minute that he decided to run with the “we should leave” version.
michael barbaro
Suggesting that the depth of his conviction here might have been shallow.
sarah lyall
Suggesting there was no depth of his conviction at all, that it was just political calculation and pragmatism. What would be better for Boris?
michael barbaro
Better for Boris how?
sarah lyall
Better for Boris in that he wanted power. And what he thought would happen, what everyone thought would happen, was the following — that Brexit would be voted down, that they’d remain in the European Union, but that David Cameron would be so weakened by the whole process that he would have to step down as prime minister, leaving Boris in place to take over. And then Boris would lead the country, not through Brexit — because Brexit would have been voted down — but he would have appeased the right wing of the party, and thus consolidated his power better than Cameron ever could.
michael barbaro
So this whole kind of move to backstab David Cameron by supporting Brexit at the last minute is based on his belief that Brexit would not actually happen, until it did.
archived recording
There we are. That is now statistically, mathematically there, that the Leave campaign have won. And we’re expecting at the end of the count 52 percent for Leave, 48 percent for Remain. Quite an extraordinary moment.
sarah lyall
Everybody was shocked. And if you see, there was an amazing moment where Boris Johnson comes out —
archived recording (boris johnson)
Today, I think all of us politicians —
sarah lyall
— the head of this campaign —
archived recording (boris johnson)
— should thank the British people —
sarah lyall
— to give a press conference —
archived recording (boris johnson)
— because, in a way, they have been doing our job for us.
sarah lyall
— to basically reassure the country that he is in control, that he knows what he’s doing.
archived recording (boris johnson)
They hire us to deal with the hard questions. And this year, we gave them one of the biggest and toughest questions of all.
sarah lyall
And he looks so frightened.
archived recording (boris johnson)
I believe the British people have spoken up for democracy.
sarah lyall
He looks like a deer caught in the headlights. He has no plan. It becomes clear he has no plan.
^archived recording (boris johnson)
Thank you, finally, to everybody at Vote Leave for the extraordinary and positive campaign you have run. Thank you.
michael barbaro
Then what happens?
archived recording (david cameron)
It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve our country as prime minister over these last six years.
sarah lyall
So then David Cameron quits. And they’re left with a power vacuum. Who is going to be the next prime minister? And at that point, it looked like Boris was a shoo-in. He was definitely going to get it. He had been the head of the Leave campaign. He was the most popular politician in the country.
michael barbaro
And this is what he’s always wanted.
sarah lyall
Yeah, everybody knew who he was. It’s what he’s always wanted. And he had a colleague, Michael Gove, who had also betrayed Cameron and helped him, helped Boris, with the anti-Europe campaign. And the idea was that Boris would be prime minister, and Michael Gove would be, like, chancellor of the Exchequer or some other really good job. And they’d sort of planned it all out. And there really weren’t any other legitimate candidates at that point. So that was, like, on a Friday, I think. And there was, I think, six days to figure this out, or about a week to figure it out. And they’re campaigning, and everyone’s like, what are they going to do? They have to put out some sort of plan. Boris writes this editorial for The Telegraph that’s supposedly putting out his political plan. There isn’t really a plan. It’s all chaotic. It’s all weird. Everyone’s getting scared. And then the day before Boris is meant to formally announce that he is putting his name forward to be prime minister —
archived recording (michael gove)
I thought it was right that, following the decision that the British people took last week —
sarah lyall
— Michael Gove, his great friend and ally through the whole campaign —
archived recording (michael gove)
And I hoped that Boris Johnson would be someone who could ensure that the government followed the instructions of the British people, and also build and unite a team around him in order to lead this country forward.
sarah lyall
— calls a press conference and says —
archived recording (michael gove)
And Boris is an amazing and an impressive person. But I’ve realized in the last few days that Boris isn’t capable of building that team and providing that unity.
sarah lyall
He doesn’t trust Boris. He thinks Boris would be a bad prime minister.
michael barbaro
Good lord.
sarah lyall
He’s withdrawing his support. Yes. And so —
^archived recording (boris johnson)
Well, I must tell you —
sarah lyall
Everybody who thought Boris is going to be prime minister is now saying he’s not going to be. And Boris has to withdraw from the race.
^archived recording (boris johnson)
I have concluded that person cannot be me.
michael barbaro
This is pretty humiliating.
sarah lyall
Really humiliating, and it felt like everything had finally caught up to him. He’d been exposed. The lying, the blundering, the sort of lack of preparation, the inability to follow through on things had all finally, finally come back to haunt him. He’d always gotten away with everything before. He was like the Teflon politician. And suddenly, he was having to accept the repercussions of what he had done.
michael barbaro
What happens?
sarah lyall
They have to find a compromise candidate. And everyone is sort of poisoned in one way or another, so they settle on this super unlikely figure, Theresa May.
archived recording (theresa may)
I have just been to Buckingham Palace, where Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to form a new government. And I accepted.
sarah lyall
And she tries, and she tries, and no one likes what she does.
michael barbaro
And where is Boris during all this period?
sarah lyall
Well, Boris is a dangerous figure. So she felt, the way Cameron did before, that she could sort of neuter him by giving him a job in her cabinet. So she makes him foreign secretary, another job he’s not very good at.
archived recording
Either they’re dissembling or lying, or you are. Four ambassadors said they heard it said several times. You said it’s not government policy, but you do support free movement. That’s four of them. They’re not lying.
^archived recording (boris johnson)
No, that’s complete nonsense. Yes. Well, I think that they have been misrepresented. And if I may say so, I’m not entirely convinced that your reporter talked to those ambassadors. And I think —
sarah lyall
He’s underprepared. He’s disheveled. He says things that aren’t true. He makes some bad blunders, but he sort of soldiers on.
michael barbaro
Sounds like Boris Johnson.
sarah lyall
Sounds like Boris Johnson. He’s Boris being Boris. And then he ends up resigning from the cabinet over what he says is Theresa May’s poor handling of the Brexit negotiations.
^archived recording (boris johnson)
We never actually turned that vision into a negotiating position in Brussels. And we never made it into a negotiating offer. Instead, we dithered.
sarah lyall
But really what he’s doing is starting to plot his next move.
[music]
archived recording
So the nos have it. The nos have it. Unlock! Indeed, point of order, the prime minister.
^archived recording (boris johnson)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the House has spoken, and the government will listen. It is clear that the House does not support this deal. But tonight’s vote tells us nothing about what it does support.
sarah lyall
Theresa May is like one of those — she’s, I’m afraid, like a bull in a bull ring, who has tons of stuff sticking out of her. And she’s staggering around, and people are throwing spears at her. And they’re sticking in, and she’s bleeding, and everyone’s criticizing her.
michael barbaro
This is so graphic.
sarah lyall
Sorry. And she keeps coming back.
archived recording
So the nos have it. The nos have it. Unlock!
sarah lyall
And trying again, and nobody likes anything she does.
archived recording (theresa may)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I profoundly regret the decision that this House has taken tonight.
sarah lyall
And she becomes more and more unpopular.
archived recording
So the nos have it. The nos have it. Unlock!
sarah lyall
And by the end, people are almost like, whoever gets in we prefer to Theresa May.
archived recording (theresa may)
Mr. Speaker, I think it should be a matter of profound regret to every member of this House that once again, we have been unable to support leaving the European Union — [SHOUTING] — in orderly fashion.
archived recording
Order.
sarah lyall
So the moment that Theresa May announces that she’s stepping down, Boris Johnson sees his second chance.
michael barbaro
To be prime minister.
sarah lyall
To be prime minister. Get her out, and then he can go in.
archived recording
I am pleased today, I am proud today, to introduce the candidate whom I shall support to lead the Conservative Party and our nation, a man who has already shown that he can lead this great global city through two successful terms. Ladies and gentlemen, Boris Johnson. [APPLAUSE]
michael barbaro
Sarah, are we to understand that all of this played out exactly the way that Boris Johnson would have hoped, that after he elevated Brexit, no matter what you think of it, Brexit has come around to elevate him?
sarah lyall
I think that’s right. I think in the last three years since the vote, he’s had to get his head around the fact, this is what’s going to happen. And if he has a conviction, this is now his conviction. And it’s a poisoned chalice, in my opinion. I feel like he’s set himself up for a task that’s almost impossible to carry out. And it’s kind of ironic that he’s gotten this job through something that he put into place and made it so difficult for himself. His political hero is Winston Churchill. He always wanted to be Winston Churchill. And I don’t see how anyone could be Winston Churchill throughout the Brexit process.
michael barbaro
Why not?
sarah lyall
It’s not like defeating the Nazis during the Second World War. It’s not a war. It’s a very, very complicated divorce from an entity that Britain is incredibly connected to in ways that most people don’t understand and take for granted. And I don’t see anyone coming out of it better off than they were before.
michael barbaro
So now this man, with what appears to be no deeply rooted political views, is going to be steering the U.K. through its greatest political challenge, perhaps, in history. And it’s exactly what he wanted.
sarah lyall
I’m not sure he wanted to have to be prime minister at this moment in history. But it’s the only chance he’s going to get. And he has a sort of blind optimism that he will be able to figure something out when he gets a job. And I think that’s the approach he’s taking now.
[music]
michael barbaro
Sarah, thank you very much.
sarah lyall
Thank you.
michael barbaro
And good luck in London.
sarah lyall
Thank you. Yeah, I’m flying there soon.
michael barbaro
So you’re going to be there for the election.
sarah lyall
I’ll be there again, yeah. And I’ll do what I thought I was supposed to do two years ago, the last time this came around, three years ago.
michael barbaro
Which is?
sarah lyall
I will write this story saying that Boris Johnson has become prime minister. That was supposed to happen before, and maybe it will happen this time.
michael barbaro
The winner of the Conservative Party election for prime minister is expected to be announced tomorrow. We’ll be right back. Here’s what else you need to know today. Internal documents from drug makers, distributors and pharmacies released on Friday reveal a lax approach to tracking suspicious orders of opioids that went on to kill tens of thousands of Americans. A Walgreens in Port Richey, Florida, ordered 3,271 bottles of oxycodone a month, despite a local population of just 2,831. According to the records, the Walgreens employee in charge of flagging such orders cleared them anyway. The records show that companies had little or no oversight in place for flagging suspiciously large orders. One major drug maker gave the job of stopping suspicious orders to sales staff, whose bonuses were tied to those sales. The records are now evidence in a major trial against the companies brought by nearly 2,000 towns and cities devastated by the opioid crisis. That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
Mr. Trump tweeted congratulations to Mr. Johnson on Tuesday, adding, “He will be great!”
Mr. Johnson’s rare mix of charismatic bluster and an absent-minded air — either charming or maddening, depending on the listener and the moment — and his unusual gift for communicating with voters have made him one of the country’s best-known politicians for years, and carried him to two terms as London mayor.
[Read about Boris Johnson’s record as mayor of London.]
But his support for Brexit, along with his penchant for pronouncements that do not always hold up under scrutiny, has also made him a highly divisive figure. The focus will soon shift to the makeup of Mr. Johnson’s cabinet and what clues that provides for whether he will pursue his hard line on Brexit once in power or dial down the rhetoric and try to seek a deal with the European Union.
Parliament rejected Mrs. May’s exit plan three times this year, yet it is also firmly against risking severe disruption and huge economic damage by leaving without any agreement at all.
Turbulence over Brexit has even raised questions about the durability of the United Kingdom itself, prompting renewed talk about possible Scottish independence and a united Ireland. Writing on Twitter, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, congratulated Mr. Johnson but said that “it would be hypocritical not to be frank about the profound concerns I have at the prospect of his premiership.”
Mr. Johnson has said that a renegotiated Brexit settlement with the European Union would be the optimal outcome, though it is hard to envision how one could be hammered out and, given the looming summer vacation, approved in Parliament by the end of October.
And there is no sign that the European Union is willing to contemplate the wholesale changes that Mr. Johnson has promised his supporters.
Though they will engage with him, other European leaders are hardly enthusiastic about Britain’s prime minister in waiting, who campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
“There’s a substantial trust deficit between Boris and the European Union, and that goes back to the Leave campaign, but also his time as foreign secretary,” said Mujtaba Rahman, the managing director for Europe at the consulting firm Eurasia Group.
The reaction from European officials on Tuesday was muted.
“In my experience, whenever there is a new prime minister in any member state or country, he or she will be welcomed as a colleague by their colleagues and they’ll try to sort it out,” Frans Timmermans, vice president of the European Commission, told reporters in Brussels. “I don’t think his character, persona or attitude makes any difference in that sense.”
As a reporter in Brussels from 1989 to 1994, Mr. Johnson specialized in a genre of journalism that ridiculed the European Union, playing on a sense of British detachment from the process of European integration.
In 2016, he became the figurehead of the campaign to leave the bloc and helped it to a victory that shocked much of the world. Earlier this year Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, said there was a “special place in hell” reserved for “those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely.”
With efforts to quit the bloc stalled, Mr. Johnson has promised to ramp up British preparations for a “no deal” Brexit and argues that greater preparedness and political determination will force the European Union to offer a better deal than the one Mrs. May negotiated.
Most analysts think only modest changes are achievable. They do not believe that the bloc will scrap Mr. Johnson’s bugbear — the so-called Irish backstop plan that is designed to keep goods flowing without checks across the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic, whatever happens in trade talks.
Taking Britain out of the bloc without an agreement appears to be Mr. Johnson’s backup plan. But Parliament has voted in nonbinding motions against a no-deal exit, and opposition to it is growing.
Several ministers had already announced plans to quit the government, saying they could not support any policy that might lead to Brexit without an agreement. They were joined on Tuesday by Anne Milton, who gave up her job as an education minister just before Mr. Johnson’s victory was declared.
The most prominent politician to announce his resignation is the chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, who is expected to play a significant role in trying to stop a “no deal” Brexit. Others are expected to resign from the cabinet on Wednesday, including Rory Stewart, who said on Twitter that he would be leaving his job as international development secretary.
Although other nations like Ireland would be hit very hard, one report said that the costs of “no deal” would be four times as large for the British than for the rest of the European Union collectively. That is because exports to the European Union make up around 13 percent of Britain’s economic output, while exports the other way account for 2.5 percent of the bloc’s output.
Mr. Johnson has not ruled out suspending Parliament to take Britain out of the European Union on Oct. 31, but last week lawmakers approved by 41 votes a measure that would make it harder to bypass Parliament.
Tobias Ellwood, a defense minister, told Sky News that even if Mr. Johnson pushed through a “no deal” Brexit he would have to “crawl back literally moments later” to ask the bloc for emergency arrangements. Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, has also warned of a “collision with reality.”
Tony Blair, a former Labour Party prime minister, said that Mr. Johnson would be warned by officials that the European Union will not renegotiate plans to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland — an arrangement known as the Irish backstop — and that “no deal” was a huge risk.
Mr. Johnson would have to choose whether to back away from his promise to scrap the Irish backstop or try to pursue a no-deal exit — an outcome that could, if blocked by lawmakers, force a general election or possibly a second referendum, Mr. Blair said.
“He will face the facts and decide that if you try to engineer no-deal without Parliament — against Parliament’s wishes — and without public endorsement, you better hope it works perfectly,” Mr. Blair said. “Because if it doesn’t, you’re going to be in all sorts of difficulty for the rest of your time in politics.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/world/europe/boris-johnson-uk-prime-minister.html
2019-07-23 13:19:59Z
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