Last week, after a brief audience with the Queen, Boris Johnson took the short drive to Downing Street as the UK’s new prime minister. Elected as leader of the Conservatives by just 90,000 party members, the man who as a child dreamed of being “world king” ascended to his nation’s highest office. Before a first week dominated by a brutal cabinet reshuffle and an array of spending promises, Johnson spoke outside No 10 of defeating the “doomsters” who were despairing at the Brexit crisis.
Johnson has promised to ensure that Britain leaves the EU on 31 October, “no ifs, no buts” but, as with everything Brexit, doing so will be much more complicated than simple soundbites. The new prime minister has a tiny majority in parliament and now has a cabal of angry anti-no deal former ministers on the back benches of the House of Commons. Will they be able to prevent Johnson and his cabinet full of arch-Brexiters forcing through the chaos of a no-deal exit?
Hong Kong’s protests began in order to stop an extradition law. They have since become a full-blooded cry for democracy. Last weekend’s protests rumbled on into Monday, with riot police firing teargas and rubber bullets at tens of thousands of protesters dressed in black and armed with umbrellas and hardhats. This eighth consecutive week of protest by Hongkongers prompted China’s state council’s Hong Kong and Macau affairs office to hold its first press conference since 1997, calling on the police to do “what needs to be done” to end the violence. But it seems likely that the protests will continue. Lily Kuo and Laurel Chor report on the Chinese response. Then, in our opinion section, Louisa Lim and Ilaria Maria Sala argue that the idea of Hong Kong returning to the state it was in before the introduction of the hated bill is simply impossible.
This week’s edition also features reports from Central America on how the climate crisis is exacerbating the US border migration crisis; we decode Robert Mueller’s appearance in Congress; ask where things went wrong for Fairtrade produce and Peter Pomerantsev explores our new age of propaganda – and how to fight it.
