A leadership contest will begin in May’s Conservative Party and the winner will become prime minister, with the task of resolving the Brexit debacle. Her most likely successor, given the extent of rabid pro-Brexit sentiment among Tories, is Boris Johnson, the unscrupulous, ramshackle, flip-flopping, dissembling former foreign secretary, whose uncertain relationship with the truth and unwavering narcissism resemble Donald Trump’s. “He’s got what it takes,” Trump, who will visit Britain early in June, has ominously proclaimed of Johnson. With Johnson as leader, the chances would increase of a so-called “Hard Brexit” — Britain crashing out of the European Union at the new deadline of Oct. 31 without any arrangement to govern its future relationship with its neighbors. He has wanted to be prime minister for a very long time; he will do anything to get to Downing Street.

Source: New York Times May 24, 2019 22:07 UTC