UK: Johnson’s keynote speech was full of assurance but lacked concrete plan to lead through crisis

UK prime minister Boris Johnson in his virtual keynote speech delivered on Tuesday, at the Conversation party conference sold his country the rose-tinted image of future with his over optimistic words. He emphasised about life in post-covid era and how his administration would bring in better changes to make UK “the greatest place on Earth”. Unfortunately, he did not share any details of how exactly he planned to reach that prosperous state.

He said, “After all we have been through, it is not enough just to go back to before. We have lost too much, we have mourned too many,” he said. “We have been through too much frustration and hardship just to settle for the status quo and to think that life can go on as before the plague, and we will not.”

Many analysts believed that his plan appeared to be no-plan for Brexit and go-plan for private sector. But both the things contradict his statements, and states the obvious lack of plan, as UK has been facing huge job losses and the country’s businesses depend on Brexit deal, which doesn’t seem to be getting through anytime soon. Labour Party accused the British PM of delivering pure “bluster”. 

We have been through too much frustration and hardship just to settle for the status quo and to think that life can go on as before the plague, and we will not.

Boris Johnson

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said: “The British people needed to hear the prime minister set out how he and his government will get a grip of the crisis. Instead we got the usual bluster and no plan for the months ahead.

“We end this Conservative conference as we started it: with a shambolic testing system, millions of jobs at risk and an incompetent government that has lost control of this virus and is holding Britain back.”

Johnson was slammed by his critics for leaning his economic recovery policy way too much on private players. He said that free enterprise would be at the centre of future growth. He added,“There comes a moment when the state must stand back and let the private sector get on with it. We must not draw the wrong economic conclusion from this crisis.”

His assurance to protect private sector falls in vain as the decision on Brexit deal still stood in air. The country is much closer to a no-deal scenario than a deal, which could be catastrophic for UK. During his recent interview with BBC’s Andrew Marr, Johnson said that he can “more than live with” a no-deal Brexit, which would mean UK would have trade with his biggest trading partner, EU on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms.

Johnson told Marr, that he didn’t “want the Australian, WTO-type outcome particularly, but we can more than live with it”. WTO trading terms would be disadvantageous for UK as it would lead to cross-border disruption, higher prices and a shortage of essential goods. The UK officially exited the Union on 31 January, 2020, and as per the exit agreement it was given a a transition period to settle its trade ties until 31 December.