The world has long admired English pragmatism or the art of coming to terms with reality. And then Brexit and the irruption of Boris Johnson in British politics upset the very meaning of words. This pragmatism has become an art of uncertainty and even sometimes an annoying habit, that of going back on one’s word. Shortly before the 2016 referendum, didn’t this same Johnson prepare two speeches, one announcing that he was for, the other that he was against?
Much like her mentor “BoJo”, Liz Truss has often tossed her political decisions, backing them with astonishing ardour. She was an ardent liberal democrat in favor of the abolition of the monarchy, then a fierce conservative royalist; pro-European before becoming a passionate Brexiteer. She claims to belong to Thatcher, but her idea of launching tax cuts in a period of high inflation makes the most orthodox conservatives shudder, such as the former Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Iron Lady, Norman Lamont, who warned: “This is a terrible mistake”.
A few days before her appointment to Downing Street, she refuses to say whether the French president is a friend or an enemy. Asked about aid to households to pay their gas and electricity bills, she remains just as vague. On the Northern Irish protocol, she said that she would strike out by simple decree the agreement yet signed by her country in 2019, thus violating international law. Will she really? Impossible to say. From the City to Brussels, the lack of backbone of Liz Truss is hardly reassuring. The BoJo page is far from being turned.
