Julian Smith’s role – to keep the DUP happy and step up plans for No Deal including direct rule

Boris Johnson being ” clapped in” by staff on  entering No 10 

Julian Smith may not be a household name in Northern Ireland but his name resounds in every Conservative MP’s household and generally throughout Westminster. He was Theresa May’s last chief whip tasked with trying and failing three times to pass her withdrawal agreement. Bemoaning the scale of his task, he  told the BBC’s Laura Kunnesberg in April..

that when his party failed to get a majority in the 2017 election, which ended in a Hung Parliament, “the government as a whole probably should have just been clearer on the consequences of that”.

The parliamentary arithmetic after the poll, he added, meant “that this would be inevitably a kind of softer type of Brexit”.

  Remarkably in a new cabinet of true Brexit believers, Boris Johnson has not held this against him.  After serving as Gavin Williamson’s successor as chief whip, his main job in the NI post will be to keep the DUP happy. This mean the role of NI Secretary will move closer to centre stage than it was under the hapless – what was her name again?

With Johnson making noises about stronger efforts to get the Assembly up and running, Smith is bound to use his negotiating skills to make a fresh effort. As the chances of success are slim, his real task in this area is how to deal with the process of  “creeping direct rule” under the amendments  to  the Executive Formation Bill designed to keep Parliament sitting in September. The subjects range from victims compensation to equal marriage and abortion reform.  Decidedly more popular than the latter with the DUP are schools and hospitals “ crying out for action” as Arlene Foster has tweeted. He will be required to have a view on the stand-off between the MoD  supported by militant Conservative  backbenchers and the NIO   under Karen Bradley, over setting a time limit for prosecuting  former soldiers.

Smith will stall on the social reform agenda if Johnson plans an autumn election based on the reality after the event, or the high probability before it, of a negotiation with the EU ending in No Deal. Although an anti- No Dealer under Theresa May, he must have  signed up to Johnson’s loyalty pledge to accept the 31 October deadline for leaving. With power returning abruptly from Brussels the consequence of No Deal would  require greater ministerial intervention. He will therefore be set to prepare for direct rule, “creeping” or full on, in the event of No Deal.  This will be part of Johnson’s pledge to  significantly enhance the government’s No Deal plans.

In turn, direct rule in any form would require Dublin’s consent at a moment when the British- Irish relationship would come under maximum strain over the border.

However a general election would cancel the reform plans unless a new government chose to revive  them. The chances of that are not hopeless under either Corbyn or a returned Johnson government as he is in favour of LGBT rights. Action of this front however will always be weighed  against the chances of restoring devolution which it turns depends on the character of the Brexit outcome. At any rate in Julian Smith we have a new secretary of state who can work his way through such political minefields.

I thought Johnson’s speech in Downing St  deserved a  slightly higher rating than it has generally received – although within a generally bonkers policy.  Come on, you can’t have everything. The guy is only prime minister, a star columnist no longer.  Here are some cheer lines.

… I will take personal responsibility for the change I want to see..

Never mind the backstop – the buck stops here. ( Ouch !)

And I will tell you something else about my job.

It is to be Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom and that means uniting our country

answering at last the plea of the forgotten people

and the left behind towns by physically and literally renewing the ties that bind us together  so that with safer streets and better education and fantastic new road and rail infrastructure and full fibre broadband

we level up across Britain with higher wages, and a higher living wage, and higher productivity

we close the opportunity gap giving millions of young people the chance to own their own homes and giving business the confidence to invest across the UK.

Because it is time we unleashed the productive power not just of London and the South East but of every corner of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the awesome foursome that are incarnated in that red white and blue flag who together are so much more than the sum of their parts and whose brand and political personality is admired and even loved around the world

.. I say to our friends in Ireland, and in Brussels and around the EU

I am convinced that we can do a deal without checks at the Irish border, because we refuse under any circumstances to have such checks and yet without that anti-democratic backstop

and it is of course vital at the same time that we prepare for the remote possibility that Brussels refuses any further to negotiate

and we are forced to come out with no deal not because we want that outcome – of course not but because it is only common sense to prepare…

(I admit it did rather  tail off towards the end).