3 things we learned at Boris Johnson's Conservative Party Conference

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Boris Johnson

• The Conservative party's annual conference has drawn to a close with a speech from Prime Minister Boris Johnson in which he made a "fair and reasonable" request to the EU to make big concessions on Brexit.
• The four-day conference was overshadowed by allegations that Johnson had groped female journalist Charlotte Edwardes in 1999, which he denied, despite also claiming he could not remember the lunch at which the incident is alleged to have happened.
• The conference also saw a speech from Chancellor Sajid Javid which saw the Conservatives park their tanks on Labour's lawn by pledging to hike the minimum wage significantly.
• Here is everything we learned at the conference.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - Boris Johnson has closed the Conservative Party's annual conference with a speech in which he announced that he will present the EU with his plans to break the Brexit deadlock and secure a deal to leave the EU.

Speaking in Manchester, the prime minister said he would today be tabling "what I believe are constructive and reasonable proposals" which "provide a compromise for both sides."

However, the plan would involve customs checks on the island of Ireland, meaning they will almost certainly be rejected by the EU and by the Irish government, because such plans would likely exist in conflict with the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

It draws to a close a conference at which a series of election-friendly policy announcements were overshadowed by allegations about Johnson's private life and his behaviour towards women behind closed-doors.

Do such allegations matter for the prime minister's election plans or will he shake them off? Will the party's policy announcements be enough to win him a majority or will he fall short? Here's everything we learned.

Boris Johnson's personal scandals overshadowed the conference

Reuters / Henry Nicholls

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson is seen outside the venue for the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester, Britain October 1, 2019.

Downing Street had hoped the headlines from the conference would be about its raft of spending commitments and election-friendly policy announcements.

But the politics was overshadowed by questions about his conduct. The prime minister broke his usual commitment to saying nothing about his personal life to flatly deny that he had groped journalist Charlotte Edwardes at a Spectator lunch held in 1999, when he was the editor of the magazine. A Downing Street spokesperson even made the unusual move of issuing an on-record denial that the incident had happened, despite Johnson admitting that he had no recollection of the lunch at which the incident is said to have taken place.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson is trying to force the EU into rejecting a Brexit deal

READ MORE: The scandals that could force Boris Johnson to resign as prime minister

Johnson's is also under scrutiny over claims he gave favours when he was Mayor of London to businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri, with whom he was allegedly conducting an affair.

The danger is twofold: Johnson's personal scandals could play badly with swing voters, although there seems to be little evidence of that so far. A snap YouGov poll conducted after the conference put the Conservatives on 34%, up 1 point on the previous week, indicating voters have largely made up their minds about Johnson, whose tumultuous private life has been a regular feature of British newspapers for more than two decades.

The second danger is that, now that he has gone on record to deny Edwardes' claims, he may be forced to deny any others that emerge. As Paul Waugh, the HuffPost's political editor, reported on Sunday: "I understand there are more incidents, including recent ones, that remain unreported, pending the permission of those involved."

If multiple more incidents are reported, it could well start to affect his poll ratings, and his position may even become untenable.

The Conservatives are gunning for Labour seats

Reuters / Phil Noble

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid gives a speech during the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester, Britain, September 30, 2019.

Many of the policy announcements made at the conference were aimed squarely at winning the support of Labour voters, especially those in Leave-voting seats who might be disillusioned with leader Jeremy Corbyn's stance on Brexit.

This explains why his government has pledged to abandon the mantra of austerity which has governed the Conservative party's approach to public finances since 2010, and which has seen big cuts made to the budgets of police forces, NHS trusts, and local councils.

Instead, the Conservatives are making big spending pledges across policy areas including more money on police, and schools, and rebuilding hospitals in Labour-Tory battlegrounds like Plymouth and Harlow.

On top of that, Chancellor Sajid Javid announced a raft of roads and bus upgrades across the country, and most significantly a £1,900-a-year hke in the minimum wage for all over-21s by 2024, a plan aimed squarely at Northern seats which will benefit more from the move, which was welcomed by left-wing think thank the IPPR.

The price of Johnson's commitment to delivering Brexit at any cost is that the Conservatives will almost certainly lose seats to the Lib Dems and Labour in Remain-voting areas. They are also likely to lose most of their seats in Scotland, where outgoing leader Ruth Davidson was credited with much of the party's success in winning 13 seats.

It remains to be seen whether his high-wire strategy of making up for those losses by winning Leave-voting Labour seats will pay off.

Johnson is trading off of a toxic political atmosphere

Reuters / Henry Nicholls

A protester wears a mask during a demonstration against the Conservative Party in Manchester, Britain, September 29, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

Political debate in the UK has been a particularly fractious affair since the EU referendum in 2016. But it has reached new levels in recent weeks, culminating in what Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman called "arguably the most toxic week in modern British politics" - one in which Boris Johnson came under attack from multiple opponents after suggesting the best way to honour the memory of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, a Remain campaigner who was killed by a far-right activist in 2016, was to deliver Brexit.

Public hostility towards journalists, anti-Brexit politicians, and Conservatives themselves was on show throughout the conference at Manchester. One Conservative delegate arriving in the city spotted a banner hanging from a bridge which read '130,000 killed under Tory rule / Time to level the playing field', while two mannequins hung from a noose below.

And a fringe meeting of the Bruges Group, a pro-Brexit think tank, members of the audience booed and shouted "Shame on you!" after Daily Mirror political editor Pippa Crerar asked two Conservative MPs on the panel whether they thought Johnson's "invocation" of the memory of Jo Cox was "wise" or "cunning."

At the same event, Conservative MP Mark Francois read out a list of politicians who have sought to block a no-deal Brexit or called for the UK to remain in the EU, which the audience booed in turn. 

On Tuesday Johnson's supporters were also filmed laughing about putting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in a "noose."

In his speech, Johnson doubled down labeling the Benn act designed to prevent a no-deal Brexit "the surrender bill" and the Labour party as "communists," "Marxists," and "anti-Semites."

This aggressive approach has seen Johnson face a lot of criticism from his opponents, but so far it does not appear to be doing his election prospects much harm.

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