Johnson plots a high-risk Brexit with war on the doubters

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Most new leaders take office with healing words. But the first act of this prime minister was a ‘midsummer massacre’

New prime ministers are often remembered for their grand, unifying pronouncements in the minutes before they enter No 10 Downing Street, when the world’s gaze is upon them.

Just over 40 years ago Margaret Thatcher, before a throng of reporters and with husband Denis looking on from the doorstep, quoted the words of St Francis of Assisi as she promised to bring the country together (“where there is discord, may we bring harmony …”) On taking over from Thatcher in 1990, following years marred by social discord, including the miners’ strike and the poll-tax riots, John Major spoke of creating “a nation at ease with itself”. After Labour’s landslide victory in 1997, which ended 18 years of Tory rule, Tony Blair declared that there was no time for New Labour to waste as it set about rebuilding the country, and modernising its cash-deprived public services. “Today, enough of talking. It is time, now, to do,” he said.

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