It's interesting that Brexiters should be so keen on inflicting Boris Johnson upon us. Everyone elese has been subjected to a purity test. By current Brexiter standards, because I think our long term interests lie with a ratified withdrawal agreement, I am no longer a leaver. I am disqualified. Similarly Rory Stewart is also disqualified for much the same reason, as is anyone who has floated the EEA Efta option despite it being a favoured option of leading Brexiters prior to the referendum.
Yet if there were ever a man who required much closer examination it is Boris Johsnon. A man who with no principles, only ambition. Of all the leadership contenders, if any of them were likely to sell Brexiters down the river, it would be Johnson. He is on record as having said contradictory things to MPs to secure their votes, and though he says Theresa May's deal is dead, one wonders what his tune will be when the facts of life are spelled out to him by Brussels and Downing Street officials. This is not a man who can be trusted.
In all likelihood he will go to Brussels with a set of wholly unrealistic demands only to be rebuffed, so then he can at least blame the "intransigent EU", then start making all the noises about leaving without a deal. That subsequently animates parliament, where members of his own party may even threaten to resign the whip. Given that nothing the man says is ever sincere there is no reason to take him at hios word that we will leave at the end of October. Ultimately he will do whatever it takes to save his own skin even if that means asking Brussels for yet another extension.
Being that Downing Street is adept at engineering high drama in respect of Brussels negotiations, we might very well be subjected the usual theatre and media noise where a minor rewording of the political declaration which Johnson's supporters will dutifully describe the Emporers new clothing as a "major breakthrough". That then may be just enough for the withdrawal agreement to scrape over the line.
Famously, Johnson is not a man of detail, nor is he likely to care about, or pay attention to warnings over the consequences of no deal. But he might just pay attention to his political advisers when his popularity starts to slide. If the Tory leadership contest has served any function at all it is to expose the no deal arguments to yet another battering, where public understanding is starting to snowball and even our utterly inept media has grasped some of the basics. Johnson's no deal ideas may play well with the party faithful but may see an exodus of swing voters to the Lib Dems who (apparently) took as many votes from the Tories in the Peterborough by-election as the Brexit Party.
If it in any way looks like the threat of no deal destroys Johnson's general election prospects, he will throw his ERG supporters under the bus without hesitation. It's the old cliche; if a week is a long time in politics then four months is an eternity. If the Tory party puts it faith in a sociopathic liar, they must accept the risk that they might very well get burned. Johnson will operate a Boris First policy and as ever will show no loyalty or gratitude to anyone.
As someone who would rather leave with a deal than without, there would be a certain poetic comedy in a man I totally despise shafting the ERG and saving the UK from no deal oblivion. I would then have to credit him as the man who pulled the UK back from the brink while all his vocal supporters quietly seethe in the corner. A situation so blisteringly ironic, and so ridiculous that I certainly wouldn't rule it out. There are few certainties in politics but the one thing you can always guarantee is that Johnson will put himself first. That will be the pivotal factor in whatever happens next.
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