Boris johnson

I’ve learned only one thing at the G7 summit of big rich countries here in Biarritz: Boris Johnson absolutely loves being Prime Minister. There’s little of the conspicuous sense of duty that weighed on the shoulders of Theresa May, Gordon Brown and Sir John Major. Nor is there that unnerving claim to embody the spirit of a nation that Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher perhaps made too often and believed too much. There’s a touch of David Cameron’s Old Etonian entitlement, the idea that it would be odd if he weren’t PM. But mostly Johnson simply seems to be having fun – whether by pointing a joshing finger at the imperious president of France or telling an incredulous President of the EU that they agree on absolutely everything.

As was to be expected, the EU’s reaction to Boris Johnson’s offer of revisiting the Withdrawal Agreement if the backstop is removed has been to reject it out of hand. But there are still 68 days to go before the UK is due to leave the EU and if the EU’s resolve wavers between now and then, Boris’s high-risk strategy could come back to haunt him. Reading Martin Howe’s evisceration of the Withdrawal Agreement, one is reminded of Jerome K Jerome’s visit to the doctor in Three Men in a Boat. Rather than explaining that he was suffering from the symptoms of pretty much every disease known to mankind, J found it easier to tell his doctor the one thing that was not wrong with him: housemaid’s knee.

The ‘Non’ was not quite as frosty as it might have been. When Boris Johnson met up with France’s president Emmanuel Macron there were at least some pictures of the two men talking amicably. Even so, while Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and some of the EU’s other leaders have at least left the door a tiny bit open to renegotiating the UK’s departure from the EU, Macron made it clear it was almost completely shut. In fact, Macron is making almost as big a bet as Johnson. His calculation is that a no-deal Brexit will work to France’s advantage. Yet he may well have mis-calculated – and it could easily drive his own economy into recession.

When Theresa May held press conferences with European leaders over Brexit, they were often a painful affair – with her counterpart quick to suggest little progress had been made. This afternoon Boris Johnson opted for an optimistic approach in his first outing on the world stage. The Prime Minister met with Angela Merkel this afternoon in Berlin for talks ahead of the G7 summit this weekend. In the press conference, Johnson joked that the pair had many things to discuss including the 'small matter of Brexit'. With figures in Brussels – including EU council leader Donald Tusk – rejecting the demand in Johnson's letter to ditch the backstop from the Withdrawal Agreement, an undeterred Johnson used the press conference to make the same point.

One thing on which Remainers and Brexiteers can agree is that Brexit delayed is Brexit denied. The government continues to proclaim that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October with or without a deal. But No. 10 is acutely sensitive to the possibility of a parliamentary manoeuvre designed to compel the executive, through legislation, to seek a further extension of Article 50 to delay Brexit yet again. But Boris Johnson should keep calm about this prospect, for an unlikely saviour – the president of France, Emmanuel Macron – could come to his rescue. Whatever Brexit extension legislation Parliament might push through, any further extension of Article 50 requires unanimous EU Council of Ministers’ support.

Jez he did! Jeremy Corbyn has just surprised absolutely nobody by calling Prime Minister Boris Johnson ‘Britain's Trump.’ He labelled Boris a ‘fake populist’ and a ‘phoney outsider.’ No doubt Labour speechwriters think this is a great attack line ahead of a general election.  But it might backfire – for two reasons. First, Trump is not nearly as toxic in Britain as everybody in political circles believes. Secondly, for Labour voters, the uncomfortable truth is that the British equivalent of Trump is not Boris, as everyone says. It’s Jeremy Corbyn.  Corbyn, 70, and Trump, 73, have far more in common than Boris and Trump. Jeremy and Donald are both anti-establishment insurgents who have been married three times.

Before Boris Johnson became Prime Minister there was widespread expectation that his government would be chaotic. It was thought that he would be good at articulating the broad sweep of government policy, but that his administration would quickly sink into turmoil. In the event, the opposite has happened. Three weeks on, the government appears to be running with almost military precision. Preparations for no-deal Brexit seem to be well under control, to the alarm of Philip Hammond, who had thought the task impossible. Yet the Prime Minister himself seems to have gone underground. He is not on holiday — his government is working all hours. But he has not been as big a feature of it as many expected.