It's Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Tech industry speaks its brains on Brexit-monger's victory

The United Kingdom, incorporating Kingston*, has a new prime minister. That prime minister is Boris Johnson, and tech industry mouthpieces are falling over themselves to tell us what they think of him and his policies.

Johnson was elected by Conservative party members, winning 66 per cent of the vote against rival contender Jeremy Hunt, currently Foreign Secretary.

First out of the blocks with the thinkpieces was TechUK, which said: "Brexit must be the first priority for the new Prime Minister," urging Boris not to leave the EU without a deal.

Johnson wants - or so he has been saying - Britain to leave the EU come the end of October, irrespecitve of whether a Withdrawal Agreement is in place or not. This is something many in the tech industry are wary of.

Product shortages, price rises - if the value of the pound sinks against the US dollar - and a recession are all potential outcomes that have been talked about by the various sides.

Apart from the B-word, TechUK wants the coiffured one to "put digital at the heart of his government to turbocharge the economy, transform public services and drive sustainability" (no, we don't know what any of that means either).

For some reason the body that promotes itself as the voice of the UK tech industry didn't mention Boris's pie-in-the-sky comments from last week about rolling out full-fibre broadband across dear old Blighty. We suppose that adopting a suitably arslikhan approach is thought to be good for business.

Crack down on HMRC, urges accountant

Qdos, an accounting firm and not a fork of the venerable and elderly operating system, wants Boris to "focus on building a tax system that works for the millions of independent professionals in the UK". That means those Britons who work for themselves, based on Qdos's criticism of "the way the government and HMRC treat the UK's growing self-employed workforce".

A querulous Seb Maley, chief exec of Qdos, posited: "What is the new Prime Minister's view of IR35 reform which, in the public sector has left thousands of contractors being wrongly taxed as employees? Will an independent body be set up to examine HMRC's treatment of taxpayers? Why are a number of tech giants able to pay little in UK tax while the smallest businesses are often aggressively and unfairly pursued by HMRC?"

You won't leave, says estate agent

For reasons we're not privy to, some estate agent also spammed us with his thoughts on Boris, saying: "While Boris does have a fairly good track record when it comes to housing, he's probably not the steady hand on the tiller that many would have liked."

He then went on to say "the housing market remains resolute" and even described it as "Bojo proof". Given one-time chancellor George Osborne's untrue promise that a referendum vote to leave the EU would send house prices crashing through the floor, something that could have conceivably energised a lot of younger folk to vote Leave, this prediction may be on the money.

Marc von Grundherr, the unsolicited estate agent, added: "I don't think anyone believes we will be leaving in October and whether we do or not, it continues to move further to the back of the minds of UK home sellers and buyers."

Huawei the lads

Boris will also get the honour of making the UK's big pronouncement on whether or not to buy Huawei equipment for 5G networks.

Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee kicked the decision into the long grass yesterday. Though the actual decision had been made earlier this year, its leaking by now-sacked UK defence secretary Gavin Williamson prompted official denials, presumably allowing the civil service to present their new master with a (derisked) quick 'n' easy win. ®

Kingstonnote

* Ivanka Trump, daughter of US prez Donald, managed to congratulate the "United Kingston" on the anointment of Boris, via the traditional family medium of Twitter. She later deleted the typo'd tweet but we are assured that both the capital of Jamaica and the leafy London suburb ("-upon-Thames", donchano) are both coping well.