A version of this post appeared on Edelman.co.uk
With Boris Johnson’s triumph in the Tory leadership race widely expected, the speculation in recent days was around his margin of victory – namely, if a considerable minority (40%+) of Tory members voted for Jeremy Hunt, what would that say about his ability to appeal to the wider public? Well, in beating his rival by the comfortable margin of 66% to 34%, Johnson has assuaged such concerns for now at least and given himself a solid base from which to attempt his extraordinary political feat of delivering a smooth exit from the EU in just 100 days’ time.
While Johnson is not short on optimism or self-confidence, we should make no mistake about just how daunting of a challenge this is with an EU that has flat out refused to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement that Boris has described as dead and a parliament dead-set against his pledge to go for no deal in the event he cannot get the EU to change its position.
Something will have to give and the only thing we can say with any degree of certainty is that it will be a bumpy ride. Below is the Edelman Public Affairs Team’s analysis of how Johnson might approach the Brexit conundrum, how to gauge whether he is succeeding politically and of course what the implications of his premiership are for businesses.