Now for Brexit – and a battle for the Union

This is an historic election that will change the UK – and may lead to its break-up. Boris Johnson will now take the UK out of the European Union within the next six weeks. The risk of another cliff-edge in talks over the future relationship is still there but his victory enormously strengthens his hand with his party and Parliament.

The real battle now for the Conservative and Unionist Party, as it calls itself, will be to keep the Union of the UK together. The SNP, the second big winner of the night, will step up its calls for a second independence referendum. Johnson can refuse, but that will lay the ground for a clash between his parliamentary authority and the SNP’s claim of a new mandate which could be ugly. Any deal that treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK – as Johnson’s deal does – will stir up further talk of the reunification of the island of Ireland.

Above all, we will now get to see what kind of Conservative Johnson intends to be. “You may have only lent us your votes,” he said in the first hours of his victory, recalling how he had won as London mayor “in what everyone thought was a Labour town”. His supporters who have hoped that a large majority would free Johnson to be the liberal, cosmopolitan kind of Tory that he seemed in that role will now see whether their hopes will be met.

Boris Johnson can now take time over Brexit talks

We will now see what kind of relationship Johnson really wants, freed from having to oblige the faction in his party that wanted the hardest Brexit. He will not want the hit to economic growth that would follow that course. But he will not want to cave in to EU demands which could equally be tough – particularly on fishing rights.

He will now rush to get the Withdrawal Agreement Bill passed, perhaps bringing it back to Parliament at the end of next week and asking for Saturday sittings for the fastest possible passage. He has to get the legislation approved by 31 January, the next EU deadline. The assumption must now be that the UK leaves the EU by that date, and moves into the second phase of talks.

His slogan of “Get Brexit Done” that appears to have played a big part in his victory suggests he would press ahead with the talks with speed. But his majority gives him the option of asking for more time, if he does not want to settle future relations by the deadline of December 2020 when the transition period is due to end.

The Conservatives have only promised enough to maintain, not improve, standards in public services

In his first remarks, Johnson repeated his pledges of money for the NHS and more nurses. This, the second theme of the election, will be an early test which voters will hold against him if he fails. He has loosened fiscal rules to make the spending possible, but even so, the sums the Conservatives have promised are only enough, on IfG calculations, to maintain standards not raise them. Plans for improving the struggling social care system are even less developed.

The Conservative manifesto contains significant plans for constitutional change

One of the biggest tests of Johnson’s direction will be on one of the skimpiest – but potentially most significant – areas of the manifesto: on constitutional changes. He has promised a constitutional review. He has promised to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act – but this is far from straightforward, as we have pointed out. The judiciary has not welcomed the hint that this will look at the balance of power between the government and the courts – a potential retaliation for the Supreme Court’s rejection of his prorogation of Parliament in September.

Overall, the majority gives Johnson freedom of which he – and his predecessor Theresa May – can only have dreamed. But the civil service will be strained to deliver both Brexit and the ambitious public service transformation he has promised. And he cannot take for granted the voters who poured out to give him this majority – as he acknowledged. They may have been propelled by antipathy to the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn more than support for Johnson, or turn away again once Brexit is in some sense “done”.