Oh, No! Boris Could Become UK's Next PM
And Join Trump On World Stage

INSIGHTS ABOUT THE NEWS - With Theresa May teetering after the snap election, who is most likely to move into No. 10 but Britain’s top clown and ex-London mayor Boris Johnson.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn ran a surprisingly successful campaign compared to May, who seemed out of touch with voters. She may now lose her job to a man who claims he can read the public better than her, her Foreign Secretary, Johnson.

Our Trans-Tasman UK correspondent James Templeton writes the British PM was probably right when she called a snap election to think there was no way the electorate would replace her with an extreme left-winger. But she was very wrong in believing that the country would give her a thumping majority to strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations.

May's Conservative Party lost seats to a resurgent Labour and its overall majority, with some minor solace, in becoming the second party in Scotland and almost certainly seeing off a second independence referendum there.

The strongly polarised voting, with a higher turnout and significant swings to both major parties, is a sharp reminder of unhealed wounds in the country after the upheaval of the Brexit referendum.

The challenge for the PM, whoever that may be, will be how to, if not reconcile, then manage that division.

This will require political skills of a high order. On the one hand, articulating a credible and confident economic strategy for Britain outside the EU (based on a more open free-trading model), something which failed to come through during the campaign.

On the other, acknowledging the enduring linkages with Europe – perhaps by making concessions on the rights of EU immigrants and continuing contributions to pan-European projects – to assuage Remainers, without enraging Leavers. Oh, and then to wrap this up in a deal with EU leaders which allows them to say they won.

Chaos – or perhaps just muddling along and hoping something will turn up – might seem more likely immediate outcomes. But politics is a strange old game and a stubborn optimist might see such a clear articulation of disagreement as the first and necessary step towards resolving it.
For analysis and further updates see this week’s edition of the Trans Tasman Political Alert

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