Boris has made a terrific start

We have reached that stage in the Brexit political cycle when the distinguished historian Simon Schama takes to shouting on Twitter in CAPS calling the new Prime Minister “fatso.”

Objecting to reports that the cabinet and Whitehall have been put on a war-footing, a standard journalistic metaphor, Schama unwisely went online late on Sunday evening and said:

“can someone please stand up and start shouting (it wont be the weasel Corbyn) “YOU ARE NOT CHURCHILL, fatso, and the EU is not the Third Reich. You do not have a war cabinet because THERE IS NO WAR. How DARE you invoke the sacrifices of those fought one!”

Schama is one of Britain’s leading liberal intellectuals, it is claimed, although Brexit seems to have had a discombobulating effect on the great man’s brain. Back when this Brexit crisis began in 2016, the ultra-Remainer schtick was supposed to be effortless, educated superiority. As frustration has built, calm, patronising lectures by the great and not so good have been superseded by the shouting of abuse in capital letters, like a rant by an excitable person on the online message boards.

Shouting “fatso” at the Prime Minister in a public forum is not commonly considered standard practice for leading historians. Indeed, it hard to imagine a figure such as Edward Gibbon, author in the 18th century of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, shouting “fatso” at William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister during the panic over the French Revolution in 1789. Pitt was thin.

If Gibbon had shouted abuse at anyone he would at least have had a good excuse. In his final years Gibbon suffered, it is said, from acute pain stemming from extreme scrotal swelling, exacerbated by the late 18th century fashion for tight breeches.

Schama has no such valid excuse, that we know of.

The Schama explosion is one of the most notable examples, so far, of the rapid spread of BDS, that is Boris Derangement Syndrome. The new Prime Minister seems to drive opponents round the twist. Judgements of those afflicted become clouded. Analytical insight is replaced with a primal howl of rage about Johnson’s alleged unsuitability and the upending of the universe.

When the Conservatives held their leadership contest, many of us had concerns about Johnson’s capacity to do the job of Prime Minister. The post requires an intensity of concentration and sustained seriousness. He is only days into the job and much could go wrong as a result of the major gambles he has made on preparing to leave the European Union with no deal.

Nonetheless, it would be daft, churlish even, to fail to acknowledge that he has made a terrific start. The energetic and brutal manner in which he has approached the task makes for a welcome contrast with the dreary years of the May regime. The vim and vigour is hugely refreshing.

His attitude to the EU is spot on. While there are going to be behind the scenes attempts at unblocking a deal with the EU, Johnson is, so far, refusing to take part in the dire shuttle diplomacy practiced by May, in which she flew to endless meetings with EU leaders and was insulted in an excruciating round of national humiliations. Remember the Donald Tusk social media post mocking May for “cherry-picking”.

In contrast, Johnson says that unless there is a sign of serious movement by the EU then he won’t bother getting on a plane. He is changing the approach, shaking things up and refusing to be cast as a supplicant. Good.

In several other policy areas – such as rebalancing Britain with more infrastructure spending and investment outside the south-east of England, and suggestions that bold constitutional reform is in the air with a view to modernising and saving the Union – the early signs have been encouraging.

The root and branch reorganisation of the government was no ordinary reshuffle either. This was the establishment of a new government, determined to get Britain out of the EU. All headed by a core team attempting to “reactivate the 17.4m” – those voters who voted to leave.

Parliament is in recess, but in the upper tiers of Whitehall it is all go. Working to Johnson, the operation is being driven by Michael Gove, running the cabinet office, and chief advisor to the Prime Minister, Vote Leave guru Dominic Cummings. Simultaneously, Conservative HQ will go on an election-footing, with an injection of Cummings-style data innovation.

The Boris team denies that an early general election, to be called in September when Parliament sets about destroying Boris, is their aim. Cummings told advisors on Friday that it is not in their plan. He and they would say that, and I’m sure if there is a way to avoid an election before the Brexit deadline of October 31st they would prefer a less treacherous route to become available. Their approach is best characterised as hoping and working for a new deal with the EU, but preparing flat out for the more likely scenario that there will be no new deal and that he will need to call and win an election on a “no deal if necessary” platform.

The potential for the endeavour to go wrong is obvious. Much like when Ted Heath framed the February 1974 election as “Who Governs Britain?” – and the voters answered “Not You” – the British electorate could give Johnson a two fingered signal, and not in a positive Churchillian sense. The Tories could win northern Labour seats and then leak seats in the south to the Lib Dems. Johnson also must find a way to avoid the Brexit party splitting the Brexit vote. A failure to persuade Nigel Farage to sit this out could sink Johnson.

But if it comes to it, at least Johnson is trying to get Brexit done and not living in mortal fear of the electorate. While his approach is high risk, he has a plan and he intends to advance it.

In this way, one way or another, the interminable Brexit crisis is going to be brought to a head, and soon. Either the UK will leave by the autumn and get on with what follows, or the government will collapse and a Stop Brexit coalition will emerge from the wreckage with a coalition Prime Minister supported by the SNP, seeking a new independence referendum. The coalition Prime Minister could be Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, who has wanted Brexit his entire adult life; or Labour’s Keir Starmer; or, if they successfully redraw the map at an election, the anti-Brexit Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson, someone who speaks to the country in a rebarbative tone of voice that suggests she thinks we are all naughty or stupid children.

That divided Remain opposition is one of Johnson’s greatest advantages as he tries to rescue Brexit and save the Conservative party from the guaranteed destruction that awaits if he fails.

There is one key area in which Johnson has stumbled seriously, and that is on Scotland and the Union. Either he has been getting some dud advice, or he independently arrived at dud conclusions. The firing of Scottish Secretary David Mundell was a tactical mistake, because it upset the delicate power balance that was crucial to the revival in the fortunes of the Scottish Conservatives. Mundell was good at managing the mercurial Davidson, who is gifted but explosive.

In axing Mundell, Johnson was urged on by several advisors who do not like Ruth Davidson. They see her as insufficiently sound and too much in love with her own popularity and status.

Taking a combative approach to Davidson is nuts. Scotland is different. Davidson is the Tory party’s major asset north of the border and the leading anti-Nationalist figure by a mile. If the idea becomes established in the next few weeks that she is being “bossed” or over-ruled by Number 10, then the Scottish Tories have had it.

In their desire to insist that everyone – in the cabinet and of lower ministerial rank – signs the pledge on no deal, supporting every aspect of the Johnson strategy, they appear to have forgotten that Davidson is not appointed by the Tory leader in London. She was elected with her own mandate by Tory members in Scotland and Johnson is not her boss.

We’ll know more about what happens next in the aftermath of Johnson and Davidson’s meeting in Scotland today. I’m told that the reports suggesting Davidson was “livid” over Mundell’s removal were overblown. On the “Ruth-ometer” she was disappointed but accepts that “that’s politics.”

Unionists must hope that somehow the pair of them find a sensible way of working together.

That concern aside, Boris in the early days of his premiership has been bold, energetic and ruthless. At least he is having a proper go at it.