David Cameron is pulling no punches now. The savagery with which he attacked Boris Johnson in his Commons statement betrayed his contempt for the mayor’s behaviour. He didn’t name Johnson once – but he didn’t need to.
After running through his now familiar arguments for remaining in the EU (“stronger, safer and better-off”), the Prime Minister turned to Johnson (sitting behind him on the backbenches). With brutal efficiency, he dismissed the mayor’s suggestion that the UK could vote to leave in order to secure improved terms as “for the birds”. There would, he said, be no “second renegotiation followed by a second referendum” on the ballot paper. In line with No.10’s briefing this morning, he vowed to immediately trigger Article 50 (which lead to irreversible withdrawal) if the UK voted Out (the Leave campaign insists this would not be the case).
Much worse was to come for Johnson. “I do not know any [couple] who have begun divorce proceedings in order to renew their marriage vows,” Cameron quipped, a joke that had Labour MPs slapping their thighs in admiration (and looking more enthused than have at any point under Jeremy Corbyn). Tory MPs, meanwhile, more than half of whom support EU withdrawal, maintained an eerie silence. Johnson could only helplessly mutter and sigh in the face of the PM’s blitzkrieg.
But still the torture was not over. “I’m not standing for re-election,” Cameron noted at the statement’s close. “I have no other agenda than what is best for our country.” That was a precision-guided assault on the mayor’s self-interested motives for backing Leave (the belief that anti-EU Tory members will make him leader whatever the referendum result).
When Johnson had the chance to respond shortly afterwards, he failed to land a blow, asking a bland and abstract question on sovereignty (“In what way does this deal return any sovereignty to this House of Commons?”) Cameron responded enthusiastically by listing the genuine changes he had secured in welfare and other areas. Though he addressed long-standing EU opponents, such as Bill Cash, respectfully, the prime minister said nothing to suggest that he regards Johnson as anything other than an opportunistic charlatan.
The Boris-Cameron contretemps left Corbyn looking like an irrelevant bystander. Perhaps the only memorable moment of his response came when he told MPs: “Last week I was in Brussels meeting with heads of state, one of them said …”, “who are you?” interjected Tory MP Chris Pincher with comic timing (prompting roars of laughter on both sides of the House). Cameron later quipped that Corbyn’s pro-EU stance risked making him part of “the establishment” (a warning Andy Burnham recently delivered to the shadow cabinet).
As with Blair and Brown during New Labour’s hegemony, the real conflict is now within the governing party: Cameron vs. Johnson. Today’s opening skirmish showed just how vicious it could be.
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