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Properly, there is really only one plausible choice to replace Liz Truss as UK Tory leader and PM: Boris Johnson. 

Only Johnson can claim to have a popular mandate, from the big election win in 2019. And only Johnson can claim a mandate from the party members—having previously won the leadership, and never having been voted out by the membership.

If they choose Rishi Sunak, it looks like a coup, and an affront to party members. They had just rejected Sunak for Truss. Penny Mordaunt, too just lost the recent leadership election. And has no popular standing. Who else is there?

Johnson was ejected due to scandal. Yet the scandals always seemed trivial. He has now done his time in the back benches.

Some are concerned about a steady hand to counter the economic turmoil. BJ does not have that reputation. Very well: Johnson can make a public commitment to keep Jeremy Hunt as chancellor until the next election; the markets seem to like him. Such an arrangement would have precedent. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown made this deal; so did Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.

I confess to hoping Johnson comes back. He is such a talented politician, and so entertaining, that it just seems a tragic waste for him to leave the stage so soon.

Since this is all so logical, I doubt the UK Tories will do it.

The Return of Optimism?

One never knows; but it seems to me that Boris Johnson has the seed of greatness in him.

It puts me in mind of the nineteen-eighties. Since the retirements of the last great leaders from the Second War—Churchill, DeGaulle, Tito—we seemed to be dealing only with mediocrities, and there was a general sense of decline in the West. Then Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II arose at about the same time. Each was transformational. They ended the Keynesian economic ideology, they ended the Cold War, they ended the constant disruptive strikes. More importantly, they changed the public tone: from one of “malaise,” as Jimmy Carter termed it, and the assumption of inevitable decline, to one of strength and optimism.

It looks as if we now again have two such leaders, in Trump and Johnson. Even if you hate Trump, he looks transformational. He has re-introduced a relentless optimism about America.

Johnson seems able to do the same in Britain. He has the right tone, and the right manner. His electoral win already looks transformational in electoral terms; and Brexit will be transformational again. The sense is of entering a new age.

The Morning After

Boris

Two great news events yesterday: Boris Johnson’s majority win, and Andrew Scheer’s resignation.

Johnson’s win? Yet again, the polls were wrong. They saw a tightening race, and a bare majority. Not only are polls usually wrong any more, they are always wrong in the same direction: in underestimating the vote on the right. I think this is “shy Tory syndrome”: as the left-wing media try to portray ordinary conservative points of view as intolerable, people are less inclined to admit them to a stranger. Thank God for the secret ballot.

Johnson’s victory comes as a relief, but does not put me in the mood for celebration. At last, Brexit should get done, and the UK can start to deal with other issues. But it has been ridiculously difficult and prolonged. I think Churchill’s adage applies: the people can always be counted on to do the right thing—once they’ve tried every conceivable other alternative.

Johnson himself is a loose cannon, like Trump. Who knows how it will go? At least, he should be immensely entertaining, and that is worth a lot.

Andrew Scheer’s resignation, too, does not cheer me. I accept that it is best for him to go. As noted here, he never had the instincts of a leader. And his constant smile suggests mendacity—a mendacity that was beginning to show. Little scandals here and there. But I cannot see changing leaders as the solution for the Conservatives. Max is gone. I see no one in the wings who stands out.

On the model of past Canadian political experience, what the Tories need is a Trump. Canadian politics always works that way, with about a seven year lag. Justin Trudeau was Canada’s Obama, just as his father was Canada’s Kennedy.

The UK now also follows the pattern: they have found their Trump equivalent in Boris Johnson. And Ontario voted in Doug Ford on the resemblance.

But I see no potential Trumps in caucus. They need someone with a steel spine and an engaging manner, and they need someone who speaks both official languages. This is a rare combination.

Kevin O’Leary saw himself in that mirror last time, but he lacked the French. Pierre Poilievre has the spine and the French, but lacks the engaging manner. Rona Ambrose lacks the engaging manner, and her French is weak. Lisa Raitt has the engaging manner and perhaps the French, but perhaps not the spine. And she has lost her seat.

If not within the caucus, is there someone from outside who might fit? Trump, after all, came from outside. So did Brian Mulroney.

There might be some business guy out there who could do it; nobody comes to my mind.

But here’s a thought: how about Jordan Peterson?

He has in the past expressed interest in politics. He has star quality, and probably decent French. He obviously connects with people.

I am not myself a big fan of his psychology; but that is beside the point.

The UK Supreme Court Recalls Parliament

Britain's last "man on a white horse." 

I get the idea that the British have made a terrible hash of their constitution. I find it disturbing, in the wake of its recent decision against Boris Johnson, to hear people refer to the UK Supreme Court, as “the highest court in the land.”

Until now, under the Westminster system, the highest court in the land was Parliament itself. The people’s will could not be overruled.

The danger, as was fully understood, was that effective control of government could be hijacked by an unelected elite pursuing its own class interests. This is increasingly happening in the US and Canada. Once it was large landowners; now it is judges.

This judgement now looks like a lunge for absolute power in the UK as well. The point seems to have been to put down a marker: the judges get the final say on any law. In this judgement, they asserted their primacy over both the executive—the monarchy—and the legislature, who choose the prime minister as their representative.

Or they used to. Under the true Westminster system, the prime minister and cabinet serve only so long as they have majority support in parliament; and that support can be withdrawn at any time.

Unfortunately, this too has been recently compromised. Leaving a dangerous power vacuum for the judiciary to rush in and fill, like the proverbial man on a white horse.

It has become a deepening quagmire. Perhaps it can be fixed if and when Britain Is permitted to go to the polls again. But what if a new government passes legislation to abolish the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court then declares it illegal?

Perhaps Canada has a better chance to escape this descent into oligarchy; although it is already further along the downward spiral. The Canadian Constitution is canny enough to include a “notwithstanding” clause, allowing the legislature to overrule the courts if necessary.

We need a leader with the will to use it.

Maybe He Should Do What Boris Yeltsin Did

Purely a ceremonial office, like the Queen.

The UK is now in a constitutional crisis. It is hard to see how they can get out of it.

This bears out my observation that the problem with the Brexit process was never Theresa May. Dumping her did nothing. There are two problems here, both systemic.

First, there is simply no incentive for the EU to give Britain better terms for leaving the organization than they get by crashing out. No federation can reward a member for leaving. A no-deal Brexit is necessarily Britain’s best option, and the only factor limiting what the EU will demand. After leaving, the calculations change, and a deal may well be possible.

No better deal can come, and those who are refusing no deal to demand a better deal are delusional. Or this is only cover for forcing Britain to stay with the EU.

Unfortunately, the British parliament insists on ruling out no deal. Parliament has now repeatedly ruled out staying in the EU, ruled out the deal on offer, and ruled out leaving without a deal. There are no other options, except either electing a new parliament or mass suicide.

The next problem is that Britain cannot elect a new parliament. The Fixed Term Parliament Act of 2011 has stripped the executive, the cabinet, of necessary powers. Under the prior Westminster system, if nobody in a parliament could command a majority, the Queen, or really, the prime minister, would call an election. Now Boris Johnson cannot. This leaves Britain in the absurd situation of having no government, and no way to get one for the next four years. Only parliament itself can now call an election, and only by a two-thirds majority. Only, in short, if a super-majority of its members do not care to keep their jobs.

Just as it will permit neither leaving nor staying in the EU, this parliament will not support the cabinet, would not support the previous cabinet, will not support any other leadership currently available, and will not allow an election to break the deadlock.

The 2011 act was a remarkably dumb idea. Giving all power to the legislature makes responsibility too diffuse. Each member is free to act irresponsibly and in their own interest, avoid hard choices, and blame everyone else for the results.

Brexit

Along with Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, they two most interesting politicians in Britain, I back Brexit.

I think Johnson is right that a British exit would not be all that disruptive, but would probably end with a free trade deal that omitted all the political ties which interfere with British sovereignty. Free trade with Britain is just in everyone's interest in the rest of Europe.

Furthermore, I think the British people will in fact vote to leave. Currently, polls show them almost evenly split, with perhaps a slight preference for the no side—i.e., for staying in. However, the referendum looks to me like the same sort of opportunity to thumb ones nose at the ruling elite as is manifested in the US in the candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Not to mention the Tea Party a few years ago. This is a world-wide tendency; it is of a piece, if far more muted due to circumstances, as the Arab Spring, It is driven by technology: Web 2.0, social media, the growing lack of any need for control from above by a ruling elite.

I have long hoped the UK would leave the EU and instead join NAFTA. We are brothers over here; he fit would just be a lot more natural. A union of the Anglosphere also makes sense in terms of preserving our geopolitical interests. One hopes Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand would also soon come on board.

I hope the US and Canada are working behind the scenes to set this all in motion should the referendum go against Europe.