A look at Boris Johnson’s policy announcements thus far – and what that tells us about what he’s planning

Whatever you want to say about Johnson as PM, he’s certainly not wasting any time. He’s come out with several big policies already. One is 20,000 more police officers on the street. Another is a high speed Manchester to Leeds railway line. More money for social care and schools has been pledged.

These are all excellent policies, made to seem even greater by the fact that policy-wise, everything that the Conservatives and Labour Party have come out with for the past three years have been absolute filth. They are also very difficult for the opposition to combat. Someone could ask something along the lines of “Why is a Conservative government throwing money around willy-nilly, particularly when we seem like we’re about to have a high impact event in the form of no deal Brexit?”, except that Labour will struggle to make a “spend less” argument work given their spending commitments. The Lib Dems could convincingly make this argument but won’t, sure as they are of winning the pro-Remain Left over to their column and terrified of making any sounds that might hurt that effort.

Johnson is gearing up for an election. Yet I believe him when he says he won’t call one. The plan seems to be drive head-on toward no deal Brexit and make the other side do whatever they have the guts and organisation to do to they and stop it. If the government does get roped into an election, it won’t be their fault – it will be nasty parliament stopping them from “getting on with Brexit”. It’s a high risk strategy, but with less than 100 days to deliver Brexit, every option is technically high risk. Johnson and Cummings are betting on the Remainers’ inability to organise themselves effectively and that when the time comes, people will value party loyalty over stopping no deal – particularly the Labour MPs. Given the recent past, you can’t say that the plan isn’t sound, in theory at least.

Johnson and his team are thinking beyond Brexit. The policy announcements are clearly an attack on Labour and I think they feel that if they have to face a general election – which does seem more likely than not, whatever they think of Remainer organisational skills – then at least it might well be a chance to destroy the Labour Party for a generation. Corbyn could get squeezed between a no deal Johnson campaign and a Lib Dem Remain/avoid no deal campaign. Labour’s Brexit policy gets muddier by the minute and is not fit for a general election.