Johnson plays snooker and stuns them all

The cunning of a political genius or the work of a tin pot dictator ? Whatever your view of Boris Johnson’s move to prorogue parliament, his decision to go for broke comes straight from The Art of War, by the military strategist, Sun Tzu.

As the Chinese leader noted, success in warfare requires winning decisive engagements quickly, and never ever giving your enemies any chances.
Or, as Sky’s Adam Boulton, put it so deliciously when interviewing former Tory MP, Anna Soubry and arch Remainer: “You have been snookered.”
And so were the financial markets: snookered and stunned. Traders were as divided as the nation’s constitutional experts as to the legitimacy of Johnson’s move.

Yet there was not even a cigarette paper between those in accepting – if not admiring – that the Prime Minister’s guile is quite simply a brilliant yet high risk gamble. One that may yet win the day as it is could prove to be the best way for him to stop the No Dealers from voting in the Commons to stop a No deal, thrash out a new deal from the EU that strips out the much hated backstop and which could still get the backing of the Commons.

Inevitably, the pound fell on all this excitement. But of course it did, and will continue to see-saw until Brexit is resolved with a deal.  That’s how traders make their money, by slicing a few basis points here and there.
Sterling is now down about 7% since March and will remain vulnerable to selling until Brexit is sorted. After sharp falls on Wednesday after the prorogation news, the pound recovered to close up at 1.22 against the dollar and 1.1017 against the euro last night. After some initial tiny gyrations,  the FTSE 100 and 250 index – the more important one which covers UK companies – bounced back.

That did not stop the pundits from having a go at reading the runes. Deutsche Bank is forecasting a 50-50 chance of a no deal. What a forecast. Hardly rocket science, and about as much guidance as someone predicting whether an expectant mother is giving birth to a boy or girl.

Some were more certain, perhaps foolishly so. Analyst, Derek Halpenny, head of research at Japan’s banking giant MUFG, reckons that Johnson’s move means the pound has further to fall to because it means we are heading for a constitutional crisis, and that a No Deal looks ever more likely.

Neither scenario is strictly true. Whatever the doomsters might like to say. Johnson is smart enough to have made sure that he has manoeuvred the parliamentary delay well within the UK’s beautifully unconstructed constitution. It’s a mechanism that has been used several times before over the last decades, including by Labour’s Clement Atlee and the Tory’s John Major who prorogued parliament for six weeks.  Even the most testy of experts accept that suspending parliament for a few weeks to allow a new Queen’s speech is acceptable, and cannot be open to judicial review on this basis.

Indeed, that is the genius of Johnson’s first strike: it’s within the law, or at least, the conventions of the land.