Crises await Boris Johnson in Downing Street

Britain’s new PM has promised a lot; it’s time for him to deliver.

Boris Johnson is the new British prime minister. Could he be one of the last? Picture: Getty Images

Boris Johnson will find his in-tray overflowing when he enters 10 Downing Street as British prime minister. An array of unique crises demand immediate and comprehensive attention before he can turn to the concerns that governments normally focus on.

Brexit

Boris Johnson must appoint not only a new Brexit secretary but also the key political aides and officials who will work on his promised renegotiation of Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

The most important job is that of his chief Europe adviser, who will be his point man with Brussels and EU capitals. This job, previously held by Olly Robbins, is expected to go to David Frost, a former diplomat who served as his political adviser in the Foreign Office. He is also considering the appointment of a Brexiteer MP to lead the Cabinet Office team in charge of EU exit negotiations.

The next critical task is agreeing a negotiating strategy. He will have to establish a detailed British plan, including where his real red lines lie and where he will give ground. This needs to be done within the next three weeks, before a G7 summit in Biarritz on August 24 that will be attended by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Donald Tusk, the outgoing president of the European Council. This will be a key moment if there is any prospect of an agreement by October 31.

Given his “do or die” commitment to leaving the EU by then, Johnson must step up the British government’s no-deal preparations and decide what additional measures he wants to take. He will turn the Department for Exiting the European Union into a full-blown no-deal ministry and launch a public relations campaign to prepare businesses and individuals for potential disruption. He is also expected to sign off on a multi-billion-pound package of financial support for businesses that will be affected by new tariff and non-tariff barriers to reassure them in advance of the no-deal outcome.

Foreign policy

Johnson will walk into a foreign policy crisis over Iran and must quickly decide whether to continue May’s policy of trying to build a European naval coalition to protect shipping in the Gulf or joining a US-led force.

Washington wants to peel Britain away from its European allies to take a tougher stance on Iran and the nuclear deal. So far Britain has resisted but Johnson will face intense pressure from US President Donald Trump to change course.

The US also will put pressure on Johnson over Chinese telecoms company Huawei. He has to decide whether to allow Huawei, which has close links to the Chinese state, to participate in building the infrastructure behind the UK’s new 5G network. Ban it and he risks an early confrontation with Beijing, for whom the controversy has become a potent symbol of Western economic aggression.

Allow it to participate and he risks an early rift with Trump, who has made clear that he expects Britain to follow the US’s lead. He could try to fudge the decision — but that risks irritating both sides.

Hong Kong is also a major headache. Britain is sharply at odds with China over this and has criticised it for failing to adhere to the terms of the treaty under which the former colony was handed back in 1997.

The Union

There is a realistic prospect Johnson could be the last prime minister of the UK. He will be told in no uncertain terms by Whitehall that his Brexit strategy could precipitate Scottish independence and Irish reunification, shattering the successful and historic union of nations.

In Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, has made clear that a no-deal exit would be grounds for a second referendum. Johnson will have to devise a no-deal strategy to shield business, fisheries and farming from the worst effects of this outcome, which would enhance Sturgeon’s case for separation.

In Ireland, under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, the British and Irish governments must hold a border poll on reunification if public opinion suggests that it would be successful.

Johnson needs to restart the Northern Ireland power-sharing executive at Stormont. Without it, he would have no choice in the event of no deal but to reimpose direct political rule from London as civil servants do not have the legal power to take decisions.

This would be controversial and, combined with the likely disruption of no deal, would increase the chance of a successful unification vote. Edinburgh and Belfast are expected to be the first places Johnson visits as prime minister.

B O R I S

Economy

Johnson inherits an economy that is remarkably buoyant despite the uncertainty around Brexit. The deficit is low by historical standards, there are record levels of employment and earnings are finally growing faster than inflation.

However, he will have to work with his new chancellor to urgently draw up two sets of tax and spending plans for deal and no-deal scenarios.

Departmental budget allocations run out in April and he needs to set out where his government intends to spend its money in the next financial year. This should have already happened but was delayed by May.

The problem is that Treasury cannot make accurate predictions of how much money it will have to spend until Brexit is resolved.

A no-deal Brexit would require substantial direct government support for industry and farming. A deal would allow the prime minister to focus on the priorities that he set out during the campaign, such as additional resources for the police and social care.

Many of the fiscal measures Johnson might wish to take to offset the worst effects of no deal, such as reducing business and property taxes, will require legislation. However, any emergency no-deal budget before October 31 risks being hijacked by opponents to rule out his strategy. Johnson will have to decide whether this is a risk worth taking.

Elsewhere, he will have to choose a successor to Mark Carney, who is due to step down as governor of the Bank of England in February. Given the independent nature of the role, the prime minister will want to ensure the successful candidate is not someone who is going to undermine his administration — particularly if Britain has left the EU without a deal.

Heathrow and HS2

There is no decision more toxic to Johnson than whether to allow a third runway at Heathrow. He famously vowed to lie in front of the bulldozers but refused during the campaign to say he would cancel it. Allow it to continue and he will be accused of craven hypocrisy. Pull the plug and he will infuriate business, although support for expansion at Gatwick continues.

Scrapping the scheme would also lead to another long delay in creating much-needed additional air capacity in the southeast that is important to his post-Brexit global Britain strategy.

HS2, the high-speed line linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, presents another pressing infrastructure problem. Its £56 billion ($100bn) budget is expected to rise and Johnson has to decide whether to keep it going.

Scrapping HS2 would be popular with the Tory grassroots but the project has influential backing from political leaders in the Midlands and north impatient for better north-south links.

Crunch time will come in December when Johnson receives the review he commissioned into the project, but axing it when £6.6bn has been spent and almost 9000 jobs have been created would be difficult, particularly given that it would require a parliamentary vote.

Defence

Washington will put Johnson under early pressure to match British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s campaign pledge to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, at a cost of £15bn a year.

He also will be warned by defence chiefs that, at present spending levels, Britain’s armed forces will not be able to keep pace with the fast-evolving nature of the threats facing the nation and the technology revolutionising warfare. This will come to a head with a new strategic defence and security review that senior generals want published next year.

Undermanning and recruitment problems in the army and navy need to be addressed and there are severe pilot training delays in the RAF.

The unfolding crisis in the Gulf has exposed the poor availability of military escort warships, prompting calls to pay to expedite the delivery of new Type 26 frigates, which are not due to enter operations until 2027.

Investment in offensive cyber-technologies and other new capabilities is required.

These demands come against the backdrop of the funding shortfall — up to £14bn — that already faces the Ministry of Defence’s 10-year equipment plan to buy warplanes, satellites, ships and submarines.

Fears abound among defence insiders that the cost of the multibillion next-generation Dreadnought nuclear submarine program is at risk of spiralling out of control.

Johnson also will have to grapple with the row over allegations being made against former military personnel, sometimes decades after the events took place, which has become highly politicised. He vowed this month to “end unfair trials of people who served Queen and country” and signed a pledge to protect veterans who served in Northern Ireland, legally more complex than safeguarding veterans of foreign conflicts. The pledge was repeated to Tory MPs yesterday.

Any move to exclude former soldiers from the remit of the Northern Irish Historical Investigations Unit, which will investigate unsolved murders from the Troubles, would be controversial.

Crime and police

Johnson and his home secretary have the task of tackling a rising murder rate, growing knife attacks and a fall in the proportion of suspects charged.

All of this is undermining the Conservatives’ reputation as the party of law and order.

Johnson opposed cuts to the Metropolitan Police when he was mayor of London and has promised to restore police numbers to the levels they were at before the austerity budget cuts.

However, hiring the 20,000 extra police will take at least three years and cost an estimated £3bn. The new recruits will not address the loss of experienced officers and, in particular, the shortage of detectives.

The new prime minister will have to respond to repeated calls for investment in technological advances, such as artificial intelligence, to help with a backlog of digital devices seized as evidence, facial recognition technology and better systems for information sharing between forces.

Green agenda

To triumph in the next general election the Conservatives have to win over younger voters from Labour, and seizing the green agenda is critical to this. The first decision Johnson must make is whether to adopt a new legally binding target that all parts of the UK must meet the pollution limits recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Clean-air campaigners want a 2030 deadline for meeting the target. This would need radical domestic policies to phase out the most polluting diesel cars, reinstating grants for electric vehicles and banning the use or sale of traditional house coal and unseasoned wood. Councils also could be given greater powers to enforce smoke control zones.

Johnson has promised to review the government’s plan to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040, potentially bringing the date forward.

On climate change, May has already bound the government to meet a net zero target by 2050 and Johnson will have to decide how to meet that commitment. This involves making some difficult decisions on reducing the emissions from heating and transport.

Health

Despite the £40bn additional investment in the National Health Service announced by May, pressures remain acute.

Changes to the pension rules for higher earners have left many consultants and surgeons facing hefty tax bills. Some say it is not worth their while to work the extra shifts hospitals depend on. Others are retiring early or going part time. The pensions row is blamed for waiting lists reaching a record high, with 4.4 million people waiting for routine operations.

There are also problems with access to GPs. Almost 600 surgeries have closed in six years as workloads and recruitment difficulties take their toll, putting pressure on accident and emergency departments.

Hi-tech solutions, from Skype appointments to medical advice from Amazon’s smart speaker, are being introduced but there are concerns that they could add to, rather than cut, workloads. With almost half of GPs planning to leave or retire in the next five years, the problem can’t be ignored.

Education

After a row with the Treasury, May hoped to announce an increase in school funding before she left office but has effectively handed the issue to her successor.

Johnson will swiftly fulfil his pledge to bring spending per pupil up to a minimum of £5000 a year. But most schools already get this and it would not reverse the real-terms cuts in spending since 2011.

He will have to decide how much of a priority to make school funding and whether to adopt the three-year, £27bn package favoured by May. He also must decide whether to reverse her announcement that the government would look at reducing student tuition fees and return maintenance grants for poorer students. Critics say capping fees would benefit richer students who would have been more likely to pay off fees at the higher rate.

Social care

A consultation paper on reforms to England’s struggling social care system has been gathering dust for months and Johnson plans to revive it in one of his first acts in office. However, publishing the long-awaited paper will solve nothing by itself and could well provoke a backlash.

People involved in drafting the plan have played down expectations, saying the options are well known and the answer lies in cross-party agreement.

Everyone accepts that the system needs more money put into it: councils spend about £19.4bn on adult social care but there is further need of about £1.5bn, and the sums required will grow as the population gets older.

In the short term this means extra bailouts from the Treasury. In the longer term it may require an age-specific tax or stable funding from general taxation. Rules for who qualifies for home or residential care are also poorly understood and widely seen as unfair.

The Times

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