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Next Wednesday, barring accidents, Boris Johnson will become the UK’s new prime minister. As everyone knows by now, his approach to policy questions can be a little cavalier and he appears remarkably relaxed about a no-deal crash-out from the EU on 31 October. This will happen automatically unless the executive branch of the UK government decides on some other course and Boris Johnson insists that this will not happen.
While interest in Johnson in this country is naturally focused on Brexit, there are other reasons to be nervous. He has already committed to tax cuts in post-Brexit Britain which the chancellor of the exchequer, Philip Hammond, thinks are unaffordable. Hammond will not be re-appointed by Johnson and his unfortunate successor could have more Boris brainwaves to finance beyond the unaffordable tax cuts.
Boris Island
When mayor of London, Johnson supported a plan for a new London airport in the Thames estuary, 50km to the east of the city, safely distant from Heathrow, the expansion of which is unpopular with Johnson’s constituents – he sits for nearby Uxbridge. The estuary Airport, quickly dubbed Boris Island, would cost about £80bn, a multiple of the cost of Heathrow expansion, and would necessitate the closure of London City airport for airspace reasons. It did not find favour with transport experts and Theresa May’s government opted for the cheaper (although still very costly) Heathrow scheme.
Channel bridge
The next suggestion came when Johnson, as foreign secretary, visited France in June 2018. At a meeting with president Macron, Boris proposed a new bridge across the channel. At 35km, it would be one of the longest ever attempted and the first astride a busy shipping lane. The cost this time would be about £120bn and transport experts were once again unhelpful, pointing out that the existing channel tunnel, and the ferry links, have spare capacity. Trade between Britain and France is, moreover, unlikely to blossom under the Johnson version of Brexit and president Macron declined to endorse the idea.
Scotland-NI bridge
Undeterred, Johnson proceeded to Belfast three weeks ago and offered yet another bridge, a 50km link to Scotland. As well as the longer distance, the bridge would cross the Beaufort Dyke, far deeper than the English Channel, and could hardly cost less than his Anglo-French wheeze. The Dyke is also home to a large dump of World War II explosives ditched by the British army in what they expected to be undisturbed tranquillity. The ever-unhelpful transport experts are again unimpressed, pointing out that traffic across the northern Irish Sea is modest and already catered for by the ferry companies.
These three Boris brainwaves would between them cost perhaps £300bn or thereabouts. Johnson has been threatening to withhold the UK’s accrued obligations to the EU, to become available instead to the post-Brexit finances.
These (the so-called divorce bill) amount to a once-off £39bn and would barely make a dent in the invoice for his three brainwaves. Should the UK renege on these payments, agreed by Theresa May, there would be no basis for any kind of trade deal with the EU. The ongoing savings on the UK’s contribution to the European budget, a recurring £9bn/annum, have also been spent many times over on promises to the National Health Service.
Boris Johnson, you might suspect, has a hazy grip on matters of economic and financial policy. To clear up any doubts, he expanded on his approach during his trip to Belfast.
“With infrastructure projects finance is not the issue, the issue is political will, the issue is getting the business community to see that this could be something that works for them, the issue is getting popular demand and popular consent for a great infrastructure project.’’
This is an astonishing statement from an aspirant to political leadership in a serious country. People have difficulty comprehending the meaning of very large numbers, Johnson clearly among them, so the £300bn cost of his three transport projects should be placed in context.
The capital budget of Highways England for the next seven years is just under £9bn. Regular users will feel that this sum is inadequate – England’s motorways are not in great shape and the highways agency was disappointed when the allocation was made.
Boris is proposing that a sum equal to over 30 years of the motorway budget be spent on the three mega-projects which he announced, without costings, off the top of his head. In all three cases, the projects were dismissed by transport experts.
The Road Haulage Association had scathing remarks to make about the two bridges and the Boris Island airport was dismissed by the commission established to review the options, advice accepted by the government of which Johnson was a member. His premiership will be a rocky ride for the UK.
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