Front Burner - Boris Johnson's U.K. hurtles toward Brexit deadline

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

As the United Kingdom hurtles towards the October 31 Brexit deadline, newly-appointed Prime Minister Boris Johnson is playing hardball with the European Union, saying the UK is leaving deal or no deal. Today on Front Burner, CBC’s senior correspondent Susan Ormiston pops by to explain what could be next for Brexit.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey Thomas. Hi Trana. Haven't the past few months been so crazy?

Yeah, we launched a second season of our podcast. It's called Chosen Family, and we get to speak to the most interesting people, like my childhood hero, Margaret Cho. You know, I've been institutionalized. I've been put away. I actually really shine in an institution. Every other week, we talk to the most fascinating people about everything. When I came out about being disabled, I just didn't give a sh**.

Like, yep, I'm disabled, Google it, bitch. You can find Chosen Family wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the family. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Would you like to be Prime Minister? Well, I would like to be the lead singer of an international rock group. I mean, that was my aim. There are many, many things that I would like to have done or to be able to do. Would you like to be Prime Minister?

I think it's a very tough job being prime minister. Very tough job. I mean, obviously, if the ball came loose from the back of a scrum, which it won't, of course it would be a great, great thing to have a crack at, but it's not going to happen. Boris Johnson, back when he was mayor of London and playing coy about his political ambitions.

Turns out he was right about one thing. Being the British Prime Minister is a pretty tough job. Especially when the United Kingdom is hurtling towards a possible no-deal Brexit and you are the guy who led the campaign to leave. The challenges he faces are absolutely enormous. the campaign to leave. The challenges he faces are absolutely enormous. A parliament that's been stuck in stalemate with no real sense of any dramatic movement. Opposition from some of the party's most senior MPs and little sign that the EU is about to change its negotiating position. A lot has happened since we last checked in with Brexit and so today my colleague Susan Ormiston

is here to talk about Boris Johnson's time as Prime Minister and what it all means for the UK and the EU. This is FrontBurner. Susan, so nice to have you with us today. Hi, Jamie. Ever since Boris Johnson got into politics, I do know that it's been hard to pin him down. Like, who is the real Boris Johnson? Is he this off-the-cuff, anti-politician, even being described sometimes as like this buffoonish guy? Hi, folks. Boris Johnson. I'm here in Lisbon.

James Bond himself was said to have been born in Estoril. And today... James Bond. He wasn't born. Well, you can't put one thing in my brain. No, I know. was said to have been born in Estoril. And today... James Bond. Was it born? Well, you can't put one thing in my brain. No, I know. The idea... Or is he this very super strategic person?

Someone who's been groomed for the job for a long time now. And I feel that much was made about his first speech. And can you tell me about that? I give notice that Boris Johnson is elected as the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party. Yeah, his first speech was the day before he became the prime minister. He was the leader of the Conservative Party. And it was with his faithful, you know,

about there are 100 people in a room at the convention centre in London. And he was what we all knew of Boris Johnson when he was mayor of this great city. And he was very funny. He was off the cuff. He'd obviously thought about his lines. My opponent, Jeremy, you've been a font of excellent ideas, all of which I propose to steal forthwith. And he came up with this idea of, you know, what his strategy would be as prime minister.

And he said it was going to be D delivering Brexit and U uniting the country and D defeating the Labour Party. And then he said, yeah, and some hack called that dud. But they forgot the final E, my friends, E for energise. And I say, I say to all the doubters, dude, we are going to energise the country. We're going to energize the country. We're going to get Brexit done. And of course, playing right into the crowd, they just love the energy. Remember, three years of Theresa May, a very tough negotiator,

but very stuck in her position as trying to get through a failing Brexit bill. And they were just relieved that there was something else leading the party. Right, this sort of energy and this attempt to appeal to just average people. Yeah. And, you know, in that first speech, he then became the dude of Downing Street. It's pretty populist. Although, interestingly, the very next day, we saw a different Boris Johnson appear. Yeah, now he was prime minister and he arrived. I was there with the throngs of media outside Number 10 Downing Street. And he arrived in his car and strode confidently up to the podium.

And then we heard another Boris Johnson. I pay tribute to the fortitude and patience of my predecessor and her deep sense of public service. So we saw more statesmanlike, more based on policy, still, though, lots of energy. He talked about, you know, the gloomsters and the doomsayers. They are going to get it wrong again. The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts because we're going to restore trust in our democracy. Here he was. He was going to inject a positive dialogue into British, the British politic right now.

And this was how he came to be in that. But there were no more jokes and there was no off the cuff. came to be in that. But there were no more jokes and there was no off the cuff. You know, he had to sort of say, OK, I'm the PM now and, you know, never mind what you remember about me on a zipline, you know, riding over London. Or, you know, my quips during the Olympics or whatever. I'm now the prime minister and I'm going to act that way. We in this government will work flat out to give this country the leadership it deserves. And that work begins now. Talk to me a bit about what he did after becoming prime minister. So I know that he immediately cleared out the cabinet.

And who did he bring in as his top team? I think the most surprising thing, Jamie, was that even the veteran political commentators in this country, of which I am not, didn't know exactly how he would react. And they were shocked. The radical nature of Mr Johnson's reshuffle has surprised even some of those on his own side. The number of departures from the cabinet at 17. He clearly wants a cabinet that's as loyal as it is unyielding. In a day, he either accepted the resignations or sacked more than half of Theresa May's cabinet and brought into his inner circle only those who agreed with leaving Europe, so those who were going to be leavers,

and also agreed that that could happen without a deal because this October 31st deadline is coming at him fast and he needed to surround himself with people that had no problem with the prospect of leaving without a deal. Among them is Dominic Raab, the former Brexit secretary who resigned from that role last year in protest against May's deal with Brussels. Raab is now Foreign Secretary. The most important thing is to get us out of the EU by the end of October,

preferably with a deal, but in any event... And that was very, very frightening to a lot of Britons. And so just to be clear, this October 31st deadline, it is when the extension with the EU runs out. So either they have to make a new deal with the EU or they got to leave with no deal. That's correct. And depending on which side you're on, it's either going to be the horror of Halloween or a very necessary end to a way too long project of Brexit. OK, I'm really interested in one of the figures in Boris's new team, a guy named Dominic Cummings. How are the preparations for a no-deal Brexit coming along?

Great. The most simple thing is, the Prime Minister believes the politicians don't get to choose which votes they respect. That's the critical issue. So he's been described as this Rasputin-like character. Can you tell me more about him? Yeah, well, even if you don't follow British politics, you might know the film and TV actor Benedict Cumberbatch.

I do, big fan. Sherlock Holmes, right? I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on. And would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other. So just consider this. He played Dominic Cummings.

Dominic Cummings, who is now the principal advisor to Boris Johnson. And he played it in a TV drama called Brexit, the Uncivil War. A very unflattering look at the manipulative campaign of the leavers, of which Dominic Cummings was the campaign director. If you find a potential voter, you hit him hard, and if it looks like they're going to bend, then you don't just walk away, pat yourself on the back, you double down, hit him again and again, right, with 350 million pounds and turkey. So when you've been immortalized by Cumberbatch, you know that this is a pretty interesting character. He's seen as strategically brilliant, also very difficult to work with. He's hard on people, some suggest. One Tory insider was quoted as saying that he was a, quote, reign of terror.

He allegedly installed hard Brexiteers in Downing Street and, you know, is enforcing that everybody must get on side. So he's sort of in the corner. The day that Johnson walked into Downing Street, you know, the black door opens, he walks in, he gets clapped in by the staff. There's this photograph of Dominic Cummings in a T-shirt and, you know, kind of jeans, not a very nice T-shirt either, sort of standing at the side observing and probably taking notes about what he was going to instruct the Prime Minister to do next. So a very, very interesting character.

He's also been quoted recently as saying, look, and we'll get to this, if there is a no-confidence vote, Boris Johnson does not necessarily have to give up being Prime Minister till after the 31st of October. So he's throwing convention to the wind, at least suggesting that that might happen. Okay. We've got the UK hurtling towards this Brexit deadline, October 31st, and Boris Johnson has surrounded himself with all of these hard levers. And one question I have for you is I'm wondering if in the UK

there are any other possible scenarios here. Can anyone override Boris? And I think this is where we pick up on what you mentioned before, the possibility of a no-confidence vote. Okay, this is complicated. And you have to have a few gin and tonics to want to go into the detail on all of this. But it is a complicated process and it's changing daily. Let's simplify it.

The Conservatives have one vote majority, one seat majority right now. And that's if another party supports them as they have in the past. Okay. So that makes it difficult. However, and then they have, then Boris Johnson has these powerful conservative members, former cabinet ministers, some of them who have exited the cabinet and are not in favor of a no-deal Brexit. And they're sort of the rebel conservatives sitting on the side now, and they're quite powerful. So there is a feeling that one of the scenarios is as soon as Parliament resumes at 3rd of September, there could be a non-confidence vote by Labour and a coalition of other people who are opponents to Boris Johnson. But in recent days, we're hearing more about these rebel conservatives

saying, no, no, no, we're not going to support that. There won't be enough votes for no confidence. So we're going to try to find other ways to hem him in, Boris Johnson and his team are publicly saying this is it to the EU. We're not negotiating more. You have to realize that we're real and we're going to get out on October 31st and then privately saying, OK, well, let's try to find a way to dialogue here. Right. Essentially, they're playing a public game of chicken. Absolutely. And it is, of course, vital that we prepare for the remote possibility that Brussels refuses any further to negotiate. And we are forced to come out with no deal.

Not because we want that outcome. Of course not. But because it is only common sense to prepare. And so far, they have been in their corners. The EU has not said that it would budge at all on the agreement that is on the table, which, as you may recall, has been rejected three times by the British Parliament. The ayes to the right, 286. The noes to the left, 344. OK, so we're looking at a possible no confidence vote here. 186. The no's to the left, 344.

Okay, so we're looking at a possible no confidence vote here, but it's also possible that there's a bunch of stuff going on behind the scenes that we don't know enough about right now to say for sure. I think, though, that we should talk a little bit about the possibility of an election. Okay, so if there was a no confidence vote, would there be a snap election? It wouldn't be snap. I think the possibility of an election is very real right now. I mean... We start work this week with 20 new hospital upgrades. I don't want to see prisons just being factories to turn bad people worse. What we're doing today is putting 100 million into scans and checks of all kinds. That's why I'm delighted that we're going to have 20,000 more police out on the streets. You've been through many Canadian elections. That sounds like electioneering to many people.

And there is a thought that, in fact, there could be an election probably after Brexit, so early November, and that this is something that the Conservatives are now focused on. Okay. And why would that be beneficial for Boris Johnson to have an election at this time? Well, there are many reasons possibly why they would think this would be a good idea. One of them would be that the opposition is not strong enough to defeat them. And that if the Conservatives are able to deliver on Brexit, whether it's a deal or no deal, if they are able to finally bring this to a head, then at least the people who have wanted Brexit to happen will support them and say they got it done when no one else could have.

Okay. And they got it done under Johnson. So just to make sure I understand this, if there was a no confidence vote, there would be an election, but also Boris Johnson could just call an election. Yes. And the timing of either of those is debatable. Currently, some people are suggesting that even if a no-confidence vote happened in early September, that if no group could form a government in the 14 days subsequent, then Boris Johnson could remain as Prime Minister until after the Brexit deadline passed.

Okay. until after the Brexit deadline passed. Okay. Is there any scenario at all in which the UK ends up staying in the EU here? There's a scenario for anything to happen, honestly. However, that likelihood is less. It would probably take another referendum, which many people are not keen to launch. I suppose a dramatic election might change things. If the Labour Party got in, that could be a result. It's impossible to know exactly, but at the moment, the train is careening down the track toward

leaving the EU. So we're talking to you in London right now. You've been there for several weeks. What are people talking about? What are the average citizens saying? It was quite interesting to watch the reaction to Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. Some people called him a clown. Some people said, God knows what this country's come to now. We've got Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. You know, what next? I don't think he's got any more chance than Theresa May. I think he's,

if he's a good politician, he's very good at spinning his own story. I think it's quite sad for our country. Other people said, well, I don't really appreciate leaving the European Union. I'm not in favour of that. But more to the point, I'm not in favour of a stalemate anymore. So the fact that he is pushing forward aggressively has interested some people that want to get this over with. Well, if he does what he says, maybe we'll be okay. Which is?

Depends whether he sticks to his word or not with all the things he promised today on the radio and on the news. We'll wait and see. It has frightened other people. Really sort of said, he is playing with fire here and he's going to lead us all over the cliff. It's dangerous. It's a joke. And I just feel like I'm in a really bad episode of Black Mirror. I'm also interested in hearing your perspective on the EU's position here. So you mentioned before

that they're sticking to their guns, at least publicly. They're saying they don't want to negotiate another deal. They already have a deal. They negotiated that deal with former Prime Minister Theresa May. The deal we have achieved is the best deal possible. We are willing to add language to the political declaration, but we will not reopen the withdrawal agreement when it comes to the backstop questions. Do you have any sense of how they're reacting behind the scenes, though, to this very real possibility that the UK could leave the EU with no deal in just a few months? The EU was watching London and saying,

OK, Boris is prime minister, now what? And very quickly they realized that he was pushing this very, you know, no ifs or buts, they were going to leave regardless on October 31. And for a number of days, I think the EU was trying to say, is he for real? Is this really going to happen? Does he have support for this? And then, you know, as the weeks went on, they decided, you know what, he's not bluffing. At least that's what I believe has come to be the talk in Brussels. So, okay, if Boris Johnson and his team are not bluffing, now what? And that's where we are today. And the now what, I still believe, there are indications that the now what also includes privately,

There are indications that the now what also includes privately is, are there some bits of movement that we can make that will get this deal through, but it won't be a crashing out of the EU. There will be some kind of changes to the deal, small changes that might make it palatable to both sides. I don't know that there will be any success in that. And so far, there's been no direct discussion. So Boris Johnson, the first time he meets the European Commission president won't be until the end of August at the G7 meeting in Biarritz. But like all diplomacy, Jamie, there's lots going on underneath. These big meetings are always predetermined by smaller meetings that are going on. So the discussions are still going on underneath. You know, these big meetings are always predetermined by smaller meetings that are going on. So the discussions are still going on. But I think this game of chicken publicly is still very much out there. And like you mentioned before, very rattling to regular people who are

living not just in the UK, but across across Europe wondering how this could affect their lives. Yes, and I think, you know, I've listened to business, you know, average business people here in Britain say, you know, we geared up for this in March, the last deadline. You know, we stockpiled things so we wouldn't get caught out. We're still working through those stockpiles when that was extended. You know, we don't have the gut for a new fake deadline. So there's still a tremendous amount of uncertainty, a lot of fear. You're also hearing worries now too about, is this the end of the

United Kingdom? Worries about a reinvigorated Scottish independence movement. It failed the last time, but does this mean it could have more oxygen? So tremendous amount of insecurity and fear too. And I can't underplay how dramatic the fall is going to be in Britain and Europe. And of course, something that we've talked about on this show before as well is Ireland too. This issue of this hard border or the backstop, they call it, that separates Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland and whether or not that could reignite tensions there as well.

And the Irish have said what has been negotiated in the deal so far is what should stay and we're not budging on that either. I'm struck by how messy and all-consuming this has been. But the next two months could be the messiest that it's ever been, if that's even possible, knowing what came before it.

It's not only possible, it's probable. There is a very hard deadline approaching, and it's coming fast. Right now in London, most people are on holidays and there's a big pause, sigh of relief. But very, very soon, this is going to kick off again and we're going to see politics play out again with the lives of Britons hanging in the balance. We're looking at a possible challenge to a, you know, newly minted prime minister. We're looking at a possible election. We're looking at a very hard deadline on a political event that will change the lives of Britons for the next decade directly. I know that people in North America are probably sitting

back saying, oh my gosh, Brexit again, but it's coming to the end now. This is sort of the final round, and it's going to be difficult, stressful, and very frightening for a lot of people. The uncertainty is difficult to live through. The pound has taken a beating again. It's going to be a very, as you say, messy time up until Halloween. Susan, thank you so much, as always. All right. So before we go today, we're going to head over to Hong Kong. This is a situation that's changing rapidly.

Protesters clashed Tuesday with police in riot gear at the Hong Kong International Airport. This came hours after thousands of demonstrators occupied parts of the airport, halting hundreds of flights. This is all part of a much larger protest movement that began two months ago over legislation that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. A lot of people were scared that it would be used to target activists who speak out against the Chinese state. We did an episode on this a while back. You can find it in our feed. These protests, though, they've evolved since then into more direct calls for democracy, for elections, and against police brutality. This is something that we're watching very closely and will keep you posted.

That's all for today, though. I'm back on Monday. Matt Brega is going to be hosting for the next two days. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe.

As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.