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Boris Johnson’s honeymoon is over – and we haven’t even left the EU yet

As the reality of governing dawns, the prime minister is discovering that operating on the basis of nods and winks can return to haunt you

Andrew Grice
in Westminster
Wednesday 29 January 2020 13:52 GMT
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Boris Johnson on Huawei access to 5G network

Before Christmas, Boris Johnson’s aides thought his post-election honeymoon would last until Brexit Day on Friday. They were wrong.

Winning the election was the easy bit. This week, the cold reality and messy compromises of governing dawned. Huawei’s role in the UK’s 5G network is only one of several agonising decisions piling up in the prime minister’s in-tray.

By handing the Chinese giant a role – even a limited one – Johnson prioritised his industrial strategy for the UK over diplomatic relations with Donald Trump, even if that slightly damaged the prospects of a US-UK trade deal. It was the right call. But the prime minister has upset many Tory MPs. Some believed he had promised them Huawei would not get such a footing. He is discovering that nods and winks, wanting to please everyone, can return to haunt you.

His Tory critics are not convinced that Huawei can be kept out of the core elements of 5G. When legislation on telecoms security is introduced, Tory backbenchers will press for a firm guarantee the firm’s involvement will be phased out. Talk of 40 Tory rebels defeating the government is wide of the mark, but such a number could certainly force ministers into concessions. “We can win on this,” one Tory opponent told me.

Johnson now risks upsetting another group of Tories over the £106bn HS2 project. Some of his new MPs want it scrapped, but other Tories, such as West Midlands mayor Andy Street, are adamant it must go ahead. Whatever Johnson decides, the disappointed will make a lot of noise. The likelihood is that HS2 will not be scrapped, but the government’s plans will be tweaked to ensure some “quick wins” on improving transport in the north and midlands.

Ministers admit that Johnson’s biggest challenge is to show tangible change in the Tories’ new seats by the next election. Johnson must also decide soon whether to bite the bullet on social care. He promised he had a plan on becoming prime minister last July but has largely avoided the issue since. The real test for the 11 March Budget will not be the already promised £100bn for infrastructure projects but whether a social care blueprint is finally announced.

Proposals are being drawn up, and Johnson, Sajid Javid and health and social care secretary Matt Hancock will try to reach an agreement before the Budget. The goal: to belatedly ensure no one has to sell their home to pay their care bills. Options include a national care service funded by taxation and an insurance-based scheme under which workers would contribute towards their care, possibly through auto-enrolment as on pensions. People would get less help if they opted out, although the state would still have to provide a safety net.

If Javid announces yet more sticking plaster money for the creaking social care system without a long-term plan, Johnson will have flunked his first big social policy test. No one doubts the scale of the problem, and the pressure that inertia is putting on the already swamped NHS.

Ministers admit they can no longer hide behind the Tory manifesto pledge to seek a cross-party consensus. Labour MPs who think they have a veto on care reforms will be disappointed. It is time for the government to govern on this vital issue.

Worryingly, ministers will compound the crisis if they continue to refuse to allow foreign workers to take social care jobs under the new immigration regime due to start next year. The Migration Advisory Committee this week declined to make a special case for social care in its report to the government. One in six care workers in the UK is from overseas, but very few earn the £25,600 threshold proposed by the committee. There are already 120,000 care vacancies, a problem that will get worse without care visas.

Many care staff move jobs for a paltry pay rise, sometimes going into the NHS, leaving many elderly and disabled people unable to build relationships with agency workers who plug the gaps in their support. The committee called for the problem to be tackled through higher pay – but that would require a huge cash injection from the government, since councils and privately-run care homes are already stretched to breaking point.

As the committee noted, the Brexiteers’ much-trumpeted Australian-style points system is a “soundbite”, a means of implementing a policy that could be either liberal or draconian. But there’s a vacuum where the policy will soon have to be. Another cabinet dispute looms, with Priti Patel, the home secretary, keen to prioritise bringing the numbers down, while other ministers say the economy and public services should come first; they are right.

As he contemplates his growing to-do list, Johnson will realise that while a huge Commons majority brings many benefits, it has downsides too. He can no longer put off difficult decisions to another day. And if he gets them wrong, he won’t be able to blame parliament, Labour or Brussels. As one minister admitted ruefully: “There is no hiding place now.”

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