Reading Nick
Cohen’s article in The Guardian[1]
led me to look again at the images of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove in the aftermath
of David Cameron’s resignation speech. They looked like they had been
temporarily recalled from the naughty step. What had they expected? Quite
possibly not to be in that position. Neck and neck was a good state to be in,
and possibly a close defeat – it was not they who had been claiming that 48:52
would be so close that the referendum would be seen as unresolved. A close
defeat by the establishment, especially with others shouting ‘Unfinished
Business!’, would have given them an enviable position – tribunes of the people,
the mouthpieces of a broad church embracing the protest voters alongside those
who had actually thought about the EU and decided to vote Leave.
They now
have various courses of action: stand as a new team, fight between themselves,
or allow a ‘unification’ candidate to stand for the leadership of the Tory
Party and the role of unelected Prime Minister. If the last course of action is
chosen, this will be seen as running away and letting someone else clear up the
chaos ensuing from the referendum, discrediting both themselves, the campaign
and those who supported it. If they fight between themselves, this will
indicate that the referendum campaign was little more than a platform for their
own individual ambitions. So they have to stand; while part of the Tory party
clearly sees Johnson as an electoral liability, others see how easily
marketable he is; Gove is a bit more of a successor to Thatcher, his
expert-ditching appeal to middle England likely to bring with it all those
Daily Mail readers who will quickly forget the Daily Mail’s own reporting of
the broken promises[2]. If
elected, they will have to deal with a disturbed economy, reaction to their
collapsing promises, the at least partial removal of the financial sector to
the Eurozone, a rampant UKIP, the resurgence of Irish tension, the likely secession
of Scotland, an EU unlikely to succour secessionism in other member-states by
acceding to a desire for a relationship for the UK, and a host of other unforeseen
results, including chaos for cross-Channel movement[3],
and a change to the status of the English language[4].
Ian Duncan
Smith can be disregarded. His apparent outrage at the pressure being heaped on the
poor is blatant crocodile tears; my only direct contact with my MP has been
when I asked for help in the saving of our allotments, and his response showed
that he didn’t know which borough they were in. The ‘quiet man’ was obviously
the Lepidus of this Tory triumvirate.
So what
were Gove and Johnson hoping for? I suspect a close defeat. A close defeat
would have meant the following:
· Both would have had to be given a
seat in Cabinet, and a massive power-base.
· They would have walked into the top
jobs following Cameron’s eventual resignation.
· Cameron and Osborne would have been
seen to have ‘won’ on 23 June, and would have had to deal with, and be seen to
be responsible for the results of, the fallout – increased calls for a second
Scottish referendum, civil tension in high migration areas.
· UKIP could have been returned to the
shadows until the next election, with a large part of its support base probably
not voting or returning to the Tories.
· Though Cameron’s gamble would have
been seen to have paid off, it would have been seen as a cynical exercise in
disenfranchising UKIP supporters, and discredited him as a politician.
· Any civil strife would have been
blamed on Cameron and Osborne as a result.
· The supposed Labour heartlands who
voted Leave would have felt even more disenfranchised until a General Election
gave them a chance to put Johnson/Gove in power, probably with a landslide
majority.
No wonder
they looked as if they had lost a pound and found sixpence. They pretty much had.
[4]
http://www.languageonthemove.com/have-we-just-seen-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-english/
If Trump is elected, the perceived
isolationism of the Anglophone U.S. may affect this too.
