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Campanha
do "não" já tem o seu cabeça de cartaz: Boris Johnson
ANA FONSECA PEREIRA
21/02/2016 - PÚBLICO
Mayor
de Londres anuncia que apoia saída britânica da UE. A sua entrada
na campanha pode desequilibrar os pratos da balança.
Faltam quatro meses
para o referendo à União Europeia, mas a política britânica foi
já sequestrada pelo debate que se avizinha. O primeiro-ministro,
David Cameron, começou o dia a avisar que a ruptura com Bruxelas,
defendida por um punhado dos seus ministros, daria ao Reino Unido
apenas a “ilusão de soberania”. Mas horas depois, sofreu um duro
golpe quando Boris Johnson, mayor de Londres e seu grande rival,
anunciou que vai fazer campanha pelo “não”.
Numa declaração à
porta de casa, Johnson louvou o esforço de Cameron na negociação
com os parceiros europeus, mas desvalorizou o resultado, afirmando
que “ninguém pode dizer de forma realista que esta é uma reforma
fundamental” da presença britânica na UE – “um projecto que
está em risco real de fugir ao controlo democrático”.
“Depois de 30 anos
a escrever sobre isto, tenho agora a oportunidade de fazer alguma
coisa”, afirmou Johnson, que antes da política foi correspondente
do Telegraph em Bruxelas, para explicar uma decisão “agonizantemente
difícil”. Revelou, no entanto, que não participará em debates
televisivos contra membros do seu partido, dando a entender que não
quer liderar a campanha do “não”, e defendeu que Cameron “deve
continuar em funções”, seja qual for o desfecho da consulta.
Há meses que
Johnson alimentava o tabu, entremeando críticas às intromissões de
Bruxelas com o reconhecimento de que a UE foi essencial para
transformar Londres na metrópole cultural e financeira que é hoje.
Uma indefinição vista por muitos como pouco mais do que frio
calculismo. É conhecida a sua ambição de tomar o lugar de David
Cameron – seu colega mais novo no colégio de Eton, cuja carreira,
à frente dos conservadores e do Governo, pode terminar antes de 2020
se perder o referendo. E o suspense mais não seria do que uma
maneira de tentar perceber qual dos campos serve melhor a sua
ambição.
Mas Johnson,
conhecido tanto pela cabeira loura desalinhada como pela retórica de
franco-atirador, é também um dos políticos mais populares do país
e a sua entrada na campanha promete dar um forte impulso aos
eurocépticos. Uma sondagem conhecida neste domingo adianta que um em
cada três eleitores admite ser influenciado por Johnson no que diz
respeito à UE, sendo que só Cameron se revela mais influente (cuja
posição é importante para 44% dos inquiridos).
“Depois de 30 anos
a escrever sobre isto, tenho agora a oportunidade de fazer alguma
coisa”
Boris Johnson
A campanha do “não”
desfere também um duplo golpe sobre Cameron: por um lado, reabre a
brecha no círculo político do primeiro-ministro, que ele julgava
ter estancado depois da dissensão de Michael Gove, seu amigo e
ministro da Justiça. Por outro, faz com que nesta campanha tenha
pela frente um opositor com igual mediatismo.
Numa derradeira
tentativa para o dissuadir, o líder conservador avisou Boris para o
risco de “unir as suas armas” às de extremistas como Nigel
Farage, líder do partido antieuropeu UKIP. “Digo a Boris aquilo
que digo a toda a gente, que estaremos mais seguros, seremos mais
fortes e mais prósperos dentro da UE”, insistiu, sublinhando que,
no caso de saída, Londres só poderia manter-se no mercado único se
aceitasse regras europeias sobre as quais não teria poder de
decisão. “Viveríamos uma ilusão de soberania, mas sem poder nem
controlo”.
Provando o potencial
desestabilizador de um debate que divide o Partido Conservador, os
ministros que se afastaram da posição oficial do Governo começaram
já a atacar os argumentos de Cameron para defender a permanência na
UE. Nenhum foi tão longe como Ian Duncan Smith, ministros dos
Assuntos Sociais e eurocéptico da ala mais à direita dos tories,
que numa entrevista à BBC afirmou que a “política de portas
abertas” está a minar a segurança da UE, o que deixa o Reino
Unido mais vulnerável a um ataque como os de Paris.
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Boris,
Dave and the battle of Brexit
Old
Etonian half-friends, half-rivals face off over Britain’s future in
Europe.
By ROBERT COLVILE
2/22/16, 5:30 AM CET
LONDON — After the
extended drama of David Cameron’s negotiations with the European
Union came a one-act coda: Johnson Agonistes. The mayor of London,
Boris Johnson, kept the media waiting for almost 48 hours after the
conclusion of negotiations before delivering his verdict. He would be
coming out for Out.
The news came not
with the “deafening éclat” that Johnson promised but with
hand-wringing and apologies. After a period of intense deliberation —
during which he was reportedly “veering all over the place like a
shopping trolley” — he spoke of his “heartache” at making an
“agonizingly difficult” choice, and his reluctance at taking up
arms against his fellow Tories.
But in the end, he
said, the European Union “is in real danger of getting out of
proper democratic control.” He paid tribute to Cameron’s
negotiating efforts — “but I don’t think anybody could
realistically claim this is fundamental reform of the EU or of
Britain’s relationship with the EU.”
The British people,
he insisted, need a better deal.
Johnson
makes things fun: it’s harder to terrify people about the
consequences of Brexit when you’ve got him amiably insisting that
it’ll all be jolly super, really.
Johnson’s
agonizing had been the focus of Westminster’s attention for one
simple reason: What he chose mattered. Boris is one of the few
politicians who is actually popular, and his endorsement was one of
the few with the power to sway significant numbers of undecided
voters.
* * *
It’s not just
about Johnson’s personal electoral appeal — it’s about the
legitimacy he confers. Euroskepticism has always attracted the
zealous, but the result has been a Leave campaign dominated by those
who seem like they would rather discuss the iniquities of European
directives than the football scores. Johnson may be a Euro-obsessive
too, but he wears it lightly: Having him onside makes Leave seems
like a respectable, mainstream option.
It also gives the
Brexit movement what there wasn’t in the 1975 referendum on EU
membership: a figurehead. Instead of Nigel Farage and George
Galloway’s Enoch Powell-Tony Benn tribute act, you have a genuine
heavyweight to put your case forward.
Plus, Johnson makes
things fun: It’s harder to terrify people about the consequences of
Brexit when you’ve got him amiably insisting that it’ll all be
jolly super, really.
So Johnson joining
Leave is obviously a great boost to the Brexit side and a great blow
to Cameron (who was said to be “absolutely furious” over
Johnson’s refusal to fall in line). It is also a boost to Vote
Leave, the more moderate and Tory-heavy of the two feuding Brexit
movements.
Johnson
was, in many ways, the father of modern Euroskepticism.
True, his
endorsement was relatively lukewarm: “I will be advocating Vote
Leave, or whatever the team is called — I think there are many of
them.” But until Sunday, it was looking as if Farage and Galloway
(under the banner of the UKIP-friendly Grassroots Out) might be the
faces of the Out campaign. Now, Vote Leave has Johnson and Michael
Gove to counter them with (Dominic Cummings, Vote Leave’s divisive
campaign chief, is Gove’s former lieutenant and his retention was
apparently one of the justice secretary’s conditions for signing
up).
* * *
So is it all over
but the voting? Not quite. Having Johnson as the figurehead for the
Leave movement would be a huge win for them — but the mayor was
very clear in his announcement that he does not want to be that
figurehead.
I have no privileged
insight into Johnson’s full calculations (full disclosure, I did
edit his column at the Telegraph, and he’s said some very nice
things about my forthcoming book). But it strikes me that his hemming
and hawing about which side to back — and the hesitant tone of his
comments Sunday — perfectly reflects his, and Britain’s,
excruciating ambivalence towards the EU.
Johnson was, in many
ways, the father of modern Euroskepticism. As the Telegraph’s
Brussels correspondent — the post he used to make himself a
journalistic star — he invented the “bendy banana” genre,
making the EU a subject not just of fear but mockery.
At the same time,
however, he has — as he admitted recently — “never been an
Outer.” He is the son of a Europhile former MEP, the mayor of a
great global city who delights in its French bankers and Italian
restaurants. His demands that Cameron toughen up his negotiating
position were interpreted as a way of giving himself more bargaining
power. But it reads now like he was looking for an excuse to vote for
Remain — even if he ultimately felt that Cameron’s deal did not
give him that.
Many have, in recent
days, attributed his vacillation entirely to personal ambition — to
his attempting to calculate whether a future prime ministerial bid is
best served by remaining loyal to Cameron (and being rewarded with
the probable post of foreign secretary post-referendum) or deposing
him.
There is no doubt
that ambition will have played a part in Johnson’s decision. The
Tory membership, who have the final say over the leadership, are
viscerally Euroskeptic. But his insistence Sunday that Cameron must
stay whatever happened seemed perfectly genuine.
* * *
Johnson appears to
want to be a semi-detached member of the Out camp — to lend it his
voice without making it his instrument, and in the process to avoid a
head-to-head confrontation with his party leader.
But will he have
that choice? If the campaign starts to falter, the calls within the
Out camp to use its most valuable asset — Johnson — to full
advantage will grow louder. The only thing worse, politically, than
being blamed by Cameron for Leave’s success would be being blamed
by Leave’s supporters for its failure.
And if this great
national question does come down to a personality contest between
Cameron and Johnson, it will be a supreme irony. Biographers of both
men have long highlighted the strange way in which their careers have
woven round each other. Johnson was the star at Eton, getting into
“Pop” — the set of prefects elected by their fellow students —
where the younger man failed. He also dazzled at Oxford — but
emerged with only a 2:1, as opposed to the First achieved by Cameron.
In
the story of their lives, each seemed to incarnate the virtue the
other lacked. Johnson had the brilliance, Cameron had the
application.
Dave became party
leader first, giving Johnson a minor job and then firing him from it,
but was then forced — after exploring every other alternative —
to beg Johnson to run for mayor of London, on the grounds that he was
the only Tory who could win.
What made
comparisons so irresistible was not only the see-sawing of their
political fortunes, but that the two men had such similar backgrounds
and such contrasting personalities. In the story of their lives, each
seemed to incarnate the virtue the other lacked. Johnson had the
brilliance, Cameron had the application. Johnson wanted to be “world
king,” Dave actually made it.
Yet attempts to
erect Cameron vs Johnson into the guiding psychodrama of British
politics — the new Blair vs Brown — always foundered, for one
simple reason: Because of their slight age difference and the
differing paths their political careers took, they were never
actually in direct competition. Now, suddenly, we will get the
confrontation that narrative demanded but reality denied — between
two half-friends, half-rivals who met on the playing fields of Eton
and grew into the leading politicians of the age.
In four months’
time, the question of which of the two will go down in the history
books as the superior political talent will finally be settled. And
with it, their country’s future course.
Robert Colvile is a
regular contributor at POLITICO.
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