What the Tories should have done three years ago has finally come to pass:
Boris Johnson has been elected new Conservative leader in a ballot of party members and will become the next UK prime minister.
He beat Jeremy Hunt comfortably, winning 92,153 votes to his rival’s 46,656.
The former London mayor takes over from Theresa May on Wednesday.
In his victory speech, Mr Johnson promised he would “deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn”.
Speaking at the Queen Elizabeth II centre in London, he said: “We are going to energise the country.
“We are going to get Brexit done on 31 October and take advantage of all the opportunities it will bring with a new spirit of can do.
“We are once again going to believe in ourselves, and like some slumbering giant we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self doubt and negativity.”
Three years ago, Johnson was the favorite to be PM until his former campaign manager Michael Gove stabbed him in the back to run himself, only to promptly lose to Remainer Theresa May.
And we all know how that turned out.
So now Johnson finally gets his turn at Number 10 Downing Street, and an opportunity to finally deliver the promised Brexit. Madeleine Kearns worries that Johnson has been frustratingly vague on Brexit specifics, but there’s widespread consensus that, unlike May, he actually wants Brexit to succeed.
Johnson’s record is uneven, and the word “eccentric” gets tossed around a lot in relation to his behavior. But he comes into office with two huge advantages: He actually wants Brexit, and isn’t Theresa May.
It’s not a given that he’ll succeed, but with an October 31st Brexit deadline and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party looming as an existential threat to the entire Tory establishment, odds are that he’ll be given a good chance to carry it off from simple desperation, plus exhaustion and disgust that May labored for three years and couldn’t even give birth to a mouse.
Tags: Boris Johnson, Brexit, Conservatives, Elections, Foreign Policy, Theresa May, UK
Wow. That’s a turn of phrase right there.
I’m confused, and a little out of the loop (maybe a little lazy) … who is Jeremy Cornyn? If Boris is now PM, why does he need to defeat anybody?
Jeremy Cornyn is the hard left leader of the Labour Party, and is who Johnson would presumably need to defeat in any UK general election between now and May 5, 2022, which is the farthest in the future one could be held.