First Test of King Boris

War ends when warriors give up fighting. The safest way for this to happen, and sometimes less destructiveness, is through a decisive battle leading to unconditional surrender. Boris Johnson's grand victory in the general elections of the United Kingdom this month was such a battle. With opposition parties fully withdrawn, Johnson now enjoys the unlimited power given to prime ministers who win in large majority. Britain's unwritten constitution allows for an absolute sovereignty over the majority in Parliament, often described as the “electoral certificate”.

Johnson's reputation for excessive courage makes this a frightening prospect, but history suggests that electoral dictatorship has an important aspect of healing. The concentration of power means the concentration of responsibility. With the now insignificant parliamentary opposition, Johnson will have to face a stronger opponent: economic and social reality. Johnson will now have to reconcile his many conflicting promises and inconsistent policies and be personally blamed if he can't make “dy plus 2 is 5”.

With Brexit now set for January 31, 2020, the most important challenge Johnson faces is negotiating the new United Kingdom relationship with the European Union. The result will determine whether Johnson succeeds or fails as prime minister, and the process started with his leg bad three days after the elections, when he vowed to adopt a law barring any extension of the transition period after Brext beyond December 2020. That would require the conclusion of the negotiations within a time of no practical 12 months.

Johnson's announcement caused panic in financial markets, with the weekend it quickly lost all its profits since Johnson's election. This response was understandable, as Johnson's unrealistic deadline will prolong the miserable uncertainty that has clouded Britain's economy this year.

What if its Johnson's 12-month term is just a bluff? Johnson's career has never suffered from broken promises, and his parliamentary majority means he can abolish his negotiating term as easily as he regulates it by law. The main question, then, is not how Johnson says he will hold negotiations with the EU. The question here is what negotiating tactics Johnson's interest in using. He has strong incentives to make negotiations with Europe as non-controversial as possible if he wants to achieve his economic, political, regional and national goals.

First comes the economy. Johnson's government programme depends entirely on a strong recovery of investment in business and consumer confidence to secure additional tax revenues that it will need him to finance his promises of higher public spending. To turn his success into election into credibility in policy map, Johnson must prove that his fantastic <x0th Brexit” agreement was really in Britain's economic interests and that to do so he must avoid any sudden secession in economic relations between the United Kingdom and the EU. Any revival of last summer's panic over a breach of negotiations with the EU would prolong this year's decline in investment and could confront Boris Johnson with the threat of a financial crisis before he can offer any successful policy. A possible argument after Johnson's 12-month deadline may be encouraging a step-by-step approach: nonconcerning issues, such as tariff-free trade in products, will initially be agreed, allowing more difficult negotiations for financial services, agriculture and fishing to be postponed until 2021 and further.

There is also a political initiative to avoid confrontational negotiations with the EU. Johnson won the election with the slogan “End the Braxin”. For most voters, this meant that Johnson and other politicians would no longer talk about Europe and focus instead on issues such as health, crime and transportation. A year filled with headlines and parliamentary debates dominated by negotiations with the EU would be a political disaster for Johnson. That is another reason why he might want to resolve light issues such as tariffs within his 12-month term, while trying to delay controversial decisions on service and immigration industries.

Then there is regional policy. Johnson's victory was largely due to former lab players in production regions whose factories depend heavily on trade with Europe. To put these regional economies at risk of a break in trade relations with the EU would be a political suicide. On the other hand, Britain's production regions would welcome the high social protection and employment standards required by the EU as a condition for trade without friction.

And, finally and perhaps most importantly for Johnson's place in history, is the survival of the United Kingdom as a unitary state. This month's election victory for Johnson's Conservative Party was accompanied by equally impressive victories in Scotland for the Spanish National Party and the weakening of pro-British Union parties in Northern Ireland. If the United Kingdom continues to experience poor economic performance next year, or face some kind of financial crisis that Brex may be blamed on, the upcoming Scottish parliamentary elections, expected to be held in May 2021, will surely bring a mandate for separatists. Johnson would then find it impossible to resist a referendum on Scottish independence, because British public opinion is quite sympathetic to Scottish separatism and certainly would not tolerate a Catalan-style confrontation.

To protect itself from a rise in Scottish separatism, Johnson must avoid any possibility of an economic obstacle or financial crisis associated with Brex. The best way to do this will be by keeping negotiations on Britain's long-term relations with Europe from headlines and delaying as many difficult decisions as possible. /Buriment: Project Syndicate/In Albanian by: BIRN/