The Irish Times view on political turmoil in Britain: Boris Johnson’s miscalculations

Is Boris Johnson winging it or is he executing a master strategy that will culminate in the realisation of his two objectives: a Brexit deal on his own terms and an election that produces a large Conservative majority. Even amidst the chaos of recent days, or perhaps because of it, some maintain that all of it – the suspension of parliament, the loss of the Tory majority and the expulsion of the rebels – was designed and executed by Johnson and his circle with the intention of bouncing the United Kingdom into an election that the Tories could frame as a battle between the will of the people (as represented by the government) and the wreckers in parliament.

If that’s true, it’s an extremely risky strategy. And, to judge from events in the House of Commons over the past 48 hours, it’s not working out very well. Johnson’s performance in the chamber as he watched his majority slip away in his very first vote as prime minister on Tuesday night suggested a man who could see he was being outmanoeuvred. Because while he would within minutes of that vote make good on his threat to expel and deselect the Tory rebels, his next gambit – to call a general election – was to be thwarted by the opposition’s wise decision to insist first on the passage into law of a Bill that would block a no-deal exit from the EU. Suddenly, Johnson had lost not only his majority but his power as well.

Johnson could still emerge triumphant, but that’s contingent on two of his assumptions being proved correct. The first is that the EU will blink and cast aside the backstop at the last minute out of fear of an uncontrolled crash-out. All the evidence suggests that’s extremely unlikely. The EU position has been fixed for three years, and any desire to meet London half-way is surely undermined by the fact that Johnson has shown no willingness even to present ideas on the way forward. A Northern Ireland-only backstop could reappear on the agenda, but that would represent a shift in the British position, not the EU’s.

Johnson's second assumption is that he would stroll to victory over the Jeremy Corbyn-led opposition. Opinion polls give the Conservatives a clear lead over Labour – an indictment of Corbyn's leadership in a time of chronic government ineptitude – and Johnson would benefit from having only recently taken control of his party. His problem is that by expelling the rebels, he has completed the capture of the Conservative Party by the Brexiteer ultras, in the process turning it into a hard-right nationalist populist party. That will please voters in pro-leave seats, but it makes the party toxic to many moderates – leaving it vulnerable to the Liberal Democrats in England and all but finished in Scotland. In that scenario, Johnson could still return to Downing Street, but he would be hobbled and diminished, and, on Brexit, he would reassume office facing precisely the same questions he has ducked until now.