Voice of the Jewish News: Boris Johnson – Olive on a high wire

Boris Johnson once said he had as much chance of becoming prime minister as he had of being reincarnated as an olive. Amid the cheers of well-wishers, the tug of lobbyists and glare of cameras, he must now be worrying about the afterlife.

When it comes to our community, almost everyone agrees that Prime Minister Johnson will be a positive, as were prime minister May and Cameron.

The question concerning most of us – beyond how Britain leaves the EU – is whether BoJo’s no-deal brinksmanship with Parliament will trigger a general election. If it does, the next resident of 10 Downing Street could well be Jeremy Corbyn. Just let that thought sink in…

Labour’s new ‘remain’ position on Brexit could have led to a new progressive parliamentary bloc, together with the Lib Dems and the Greens, to challenge the Tories, who are still at war with each another, and whose votes will surely be stolen by Nigel Farage to some extent. So perhaps the most important news of recent days was not Johnson’s victory but the declaration from new Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson that she would not enter a coalition with a party led by Corbyn, who this week played the role of reformer.

After four years of misery, angst, headlines, resignations, urgings, pleadings, press releases, video appeals, vacuity, denials, suspensions, expulsions, reports, campaigns, counter-campaigns, demonstrations, insults, wrangling, letters and despair, Corbyn decided this week that “enough was enough” and put forward some suggestions to get on top of Jew hatred in the Labour Party.

His main suggestion was to centralise expulsion powers to his inner clan. The reaction of the Jewish community, which had asked for an independent process – Labour’s processes having been shown to be lacking in anything resembling credibility – was brutally honest. So the sorry saga drags on.

In the meantime, before he comes back as an olive, PM Boris has a job to do on Brexit. We wish him all the best with his high-wire act.