Boris Johnson believes he is the modern Churchill. He even walks like Churchill. He sees himself as the outsider of British politics - just as Churchill was in his marginal years. Boris thinks he will deal with the modern equivalent of Dunkirk (when the British army was saved from the Nazi's) by leading a Brexit battle and a Corbyn war. Like Churchill, Johnson's key partner in the world is the USA. But unlike Churchill with his decaying British Empire, Boris has far fewer resources to play with. He will need to be a 'supplicant' to the US, a term that was used to describe Britain in the EU by Johnson's campaign manager in the recent Tory Party vote. Even so, Johnson simply cannot accept his and the UK's status as number 2 (or 3) in a modern Europe.
Churchill hated the Nazis and then the 'Reds' and believed he would unite the country and win a partnership with the US on that basis. Boris thinks he will unite the Tory Party if he gets some sort of Brexit and then he will unite the country by getting rid of the Corbynite 'Reds'. And then of course the US will truly kick the British door in, courtesy of Boris.
In reality Johnson is not so much a Churchill as a mini Trump. Unlike Churchill he doesn't speak well in Parliament. He tries to shout to people over the heads of the Tory Party and Britain's MPs. Unlike Trump, who's strategic desire is to break up the EU as one of the three, great capitalist, competitive blocks, Britain's mini-Trump could not care less about the EU or Brexit (anymore than his apparent recent love for British democracy.) When Boris wrote his famous two articles for the Times as the EU referendum started, one for remaining in the EU and the other to leave, he was working out which would provide for his future leadership. His conclusion was that breaking up the rich, Etonian elite, who called Boris 'the Yeti' at school and were amused by, but not interested in him, using the EU referendum as a battering ram would better serve his purpose to get himself to the leadership of the Tory Party and the country. Boris has achieved his goal. Britain's government is now the most right wing government since Thatcher and it will go much much faster than Thatcher if he has his way.
Johnson's goal is not ultimately related to Brexit. He wants Brexit out of the way. He speculates that the EU will probably accept some compromise on a deal. But it does not really matter. If he can sweep Brexit away, if necessary without a deal, he can call his General Election, hopefully defeat Labour, then make any deals he wants or can get. He will use the summer recess of Britain's Parliament to go out on his Trumpety campaign - for a new, greater Britain! Hurrah!
Obstacles.
Despite the continuing bitter manoeuvres inside the Labour Party (a fight to the death led by many Labour MPs and the Deputy Labour leader over anti-semitism and over Corbyn's leadership) social polling continuously shows deep support for radical changes in the economy and the politics of austerity Britain. These views were reflected in the support for Labour's 2017 Manifesto, especially among the young and they continue.
Meanwhile, despite Boris's promise of a 'Golden Britain', his brutal 'removal' of Brexit is more likely to lead to yet more sacrifices, very quickly, for the least well-off in the UK. This changes the dominant focus on Brexit itself. It returns people who are suffering, back to the more basic issues of poverty, welfare and want. The social damage of an ill thought out Brexit applies either with a bodged up version of ex PM Teresa May's 'plan,' or with the UK coming out of the EU without any deal. Even if Boris throws £ billions at various services etc, it will not be fast enough to turn the realities of decline anytime soon. Boris, like Trump, claims he is opening up a golden future. Sadly and inevitably a golden future is well over the horizon. And a rapid General Election, based on Boris's dependence on harsh US trade deals and on the decline of key economic infrastructure, is both a likely and a deadly event for him. The image of a renewed 'great Britain' blows away as quickly as it was concocted. Already it does not appeal to the majority in the UK who did not grow up in the imperial sunset. If there is a focal point provided by mass movements, by the Labour leadership and the active hostility to Boris which smolders today, it will be blown away.
Somewhere in Johnson's misty nightmares is also the prospect that the UK itself may fall apart. But he's not sure when or why that might happen and it's too alarming for him to seriously consider for now. No; he intends to sort Brexit - then Corbyn, in that order. Then he might consider the Irish and the Scots.
But Johnson will have to face the shift in Northern Ireland as the half-dead Democratic Unionist Party get trapped by a 'no deal' or whatever version of it that is presented as Boris's 'breakthrough'. The majority of Northern Irish people who voted to stay in the EU will begin to force a Northern Irish election. The extinction of the DUP as the majority party in the province is perilously close.
Boris is also (un)cordially hated in Scotland. His leadership of the UK reignites the memories of Thatcher, Scotland's democratic deficit and the hated Poll Tax. It stimulates a second wind in favour of an independence referendum on the entirely correct basis of political oppression in an outdated Britain. Again, 'a greater Britain' is not welcome. Scotland, alongside Northern Ireland have already begun the physical break up of the 'great' in Boris's version of a new 'Great Britain'. One has the second largest mass party in favour of Britain's dissolution and the other has the government pushing for independence.
Charades
The noise and glitter around Boris suddenly uniting a desperate, lazy and worn out Tory government is as fragile as a firework on a rainy night. His appeal to 'making Britain great again', the real, Trumpite vision of the new British Prime Minister, is as fake as his news which he made up for the Times. (And got sacked for.) Which is not at all to say that this charade doesn't need to be challenged, and challenged by a more coherent, practical and exciting alternative. The British do seek change. Its society is not working for the vast majority. They are going backwards. The big majority are insecure, declining in health, homes, in wealth and in basic rights. A dramatic vision of a different sort, with a set of countries coming from Britain that dedicate their political and economic principles to the lives of all who are its citizens, without the public schools, without the pure white judges, the declining living standards for 90% - all and more of which is getting worse, has yet to be presented, in full - and as a great and deep democratic future for all.
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