Muddling through is Johnson’s only strategy to save the Union

Sometimes, says a former Downing Street strategist, searching for a solution is more damaging than managing the problem. Muddling through, he argues, is underrated as a political approach. The future of the United Kingdom may depend on him being right.

For whether you call it muddling through or the more muscular “toughing it out”, this is Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s central strategy for saving the Union from the existential aftershocks of Brexit.

In both the recent violence in Northern Ireland and the separatist surge in Scotland, Brexit has, to paraphrase Robert Graves, hatched all the poisons that lurked in the mud. But highlighting this offers little beyond the emotional satisfaction of noting that Remainers warned it would happen.

Solutions that suggest themselves to Brexit’s opponents will not find favour in Downing Street. At every choice, Johnson has refused to dilute his Brexit vision for the sake of the Union. In the current row over the Northern Ireland protocol, which creates a trade barrier between the province and the rest of the UK, he could ease friction by adopting EU agri-food rules in the rest of the UK. But this would effectively kill hopes of other trade deals, notably with the US; the Brexit vision takes precedence.

So his only answer is to blunt the sharpest edges of division and hope that people adjust to Westminster’s decision. It is, in its way, a rather imperial mindset reapplied to the nations of the UK. 

In Northern Ireland, at least, the current troubles are being stoked primarily by those who want to remain in the UK, though polarisation may ultimately speed Irish reunification.

The recent violence may have been spurred by the protocol. Yet youngsters are not throwing firebombs because of phytosanitary arrangements. There are other causes, not least the failure to prosecute Sinn Féin members for a mass infringement of Covid rules. And, beneath it all, is the Unionists’ conviction that they are losing every battle. The Brexit they backed to loosen links to the Irish Republic has instead weakened ties with the UK.

For this, they blame Johnson’s bad faith and indifference, though he is not alone in his cynicism. Having spectacularly mishandled Brexit, the Democratic Unionists are scrambling to regain lost support by agitating against the protocol. They may condemn violence but their rhetoric has helped foster it. Nor is the EU blameless, too often using the province as leverage in negotiations and taking an overly literalist approach to the protocol.

But the current state is a classic case of Johnsonian muddling through. He agreed to the protocol to spring the rest of the UK from EU rules. Recognition of his betrayal of the unionists he once wooed is shown in his persistent denials of the deal’s consequences. His gamble was and is that he can dull the most adverse impacts over time. Most immediately, that means seeking more EU flexibility in the implementation of the new trade rules and improving socio-economic conditions in poor loyalist communities.

The trick, however, in these almost colonial pacification schemes is distinguishing small insurgencies from Boston Tea Parties. The same mindset is being applied in Scotland, which may be just weeks away from giving its parliament a mandate to seek a new independence referendum.

Faced with a series of unattractive options, Johnson’s instinct is to temporise. He resists granting significant further powers to the devolved parliaments not only because they will never be enough for Scottish nationalists, but because they would bleed too much power from Westminster and England. He has even less desire for a referendum he may lose. 

One reason Downing Street has had so much trouble finding the right leaders for its Union unit is because grand strategies are not what the prime minister is after. Again, the approach is painless concessions and stiffened resolve. Scots will see a better machinery for working with Westminster, an increased civil service presence and the visible spending of UK money. He will play up the merits of the UK’s vaccine programme, furlough or funding for capital projects. Arguing that the post-pandemic climate is not the time for further instability also buys time for his enemies to make mistakes.

This approach also suits Johnson’s political temperament. He believes in his own luck and trusts his talent for riding out normal political crises.

Can muddling through work? In Northern Ireland, the UK and EU should find ways to ease the tensions around the protocol. But the DUP leadership may see political advantage in whipping up opposition to the protocol ahead of next year’s Stormont elections. 

In Scotland, the fear is that stonewalling on a referendum simply inflames separatist sentiment and that it cannot hold indefinitely.

Another government might seek more creative solutions or strike more flexible positions on Brexit arrangements. But this one is unwilling to bend on Brexit or significantly to weaken Westminster.

Muddling through is Johnson’s only plan. But it is a huge gamble. In the history of the British empire, a steely confidence that the forces of insurgency can be delayed, bought off or faced down worked well for many years — until it didn’t.

robert.shrimsely@ft.com