“D O YOU LOOK daunted? Do you feel daunted?” asked Boris Johnson of the crowd of Conservative Party members who had just elected him party leader, and thus prime minister. The question was rhetorical, but many of them did look nervous—and so they should. Britain now has its third Tory prime minister since the vote to leave the European Union three years ago. Its deadlocked Parliament is refusing to back the exit deal struck with the EU , even as an October 31st deadline approaches. The pound is wilting at the prospect of crashing out with no deal. Steering a course out of this mess requires an extraordinarily deft political touch. Yet the Tories have gambled, choosing a populist leader who is nobody’s idea of a safe pair of hands.

Mr Johnson, who wrote a biography of Winston Churchill and longs for others to see him in that mould, resembles his hero in the sense that he has inherited Britain’s worst crisis since the second world war (see article). Brexit, and a no-deal exit in particular, promises to hurt the economy and leave the country diplomatically isolated in a world where its interests are under threat, as they are right now in the Strait of Hormuz. The risk is existential for the United Kingdom, as Brexit wrenches at the bonds with Scotland and Northern Ireland.

At a time of national gloom, the Tories hope that Mr Johnson’s ebullience will be enough to “ping off the guy-ropes of self-doubt”, as he put it in his jokey acceptance speech. We hope they are right. But in reality his breezy style seems not so much boldly Churchillian as unthinkingly reckless. To get to Downing Street he has made wild promises about Brexit that he cannot possibly keep. His fantastical approach means he is fast heading for no-deal—and therefore a face-off with Parliament, which seems determined to stop that outcome. Britain should get ready for one of the bumpiest governments in its modern history. It could also be the shortest.

As they waited for the decision of Tory members, ordinary Britons, who had no say in who would succeed Theresa May as prime minister, were left wondering which version of Mr Johnson they would get. Would it be socially liberal, pro-immigration Boris, or born-again Eurosceptic Boris? Chameleon that he is, Mr Johnson has mimicked the increasingly hardline politics of Tory members. In a surprisingly savage reshuffle, he has appointed right-wingers to his cabinet: Priti Patel, a past advocate of the death penalty, is home secretary, and Dominic Raab, an uncompromising Brexiteer, is foreign secretary. Mr Johnson’s belief that Donald Trump could provide a “lifeboat” to Britain as it abandons the EU stopped him from criticising the president, even when Mr Trump belittled the British ambassador to Washington. Such pandering is dangerous at a time when Britain should be standing up to American policy on Iran.

Most worrying is his otherworldly Brexit plan. Mrs May was undone by making unrealistic promises about the deal Britain would get, pledges she spent two miserable years rowing back from. Mr Johnson has made the same mistake on a larger scale. He swears he will bin the “backstop” designed to avoid a hard border in Ireland, which the EU insists is non-negotiable. He says Britain need not pay the exit bill it agreed on. He has vowed to leave on October 31st, “do or die”. And he says that if the EU does not roll over, it would be “vanishingly inexpensive” for Britain to leave with no deal. Mrs May found the contact with reality hard enough. For Mr Johnson it will be even more brutal.

The Brexit rollercoaster has one turning that leads away from disaster. Mr Johnson has such a capacity for flip-flopping that, once in Downing Street and faced with the consequences of his promises, it is conceivable that he may simply drop them. His charm might help guide a slightly modified deal through Parliament. Europe is ready to help. But the chance that he will compromise seems slight. Whereas Mrs May had two years to retreat from her overblown commitments, Mr Johnson has just three months to eat his words. The Conservatives’ working majority is only three (and may go down to one after a by-election next week), with plenty of rebels on both the Brexit and Remain wings. So doing a deal would probably mean working with Labour, whose price is a second referendum. That would be a good outcome for the country, which deserves a chance to say whether the warts-and-all reality of Brexit matches up to the fantasy version it was sold in 2016. But the red lines in which Mr Johnson has entangled himself will probably keep such a deal out of reach.

That means the risk is growing that Mr Johnson will set a course for no-deal, billing it as courageous and Churchillian rather than the needless act of self-harm it really is. Some Brexiteers are following his lead in blustering that the warnings of damage to the economy, the union and Britain’s international standing are fake news. Others argue that those are simply the costs of getting Brexit done. But a no-deal exit would not accomplish even that. Talks with the EU on unresolved aspects of the relationship would have to resume, only with Britain outside the club and negotiating on worse terms than before. As for upholding democracy, there is no mandate for no-deal, which was not in the Leave prospectus, nor advocated by any party in the last election. Indeed, it is opposed by majorities of both Parliament and the public. Some hardline Brexiteers say Parliament should be suspended so that no-deal can be forced through—in the name of democracy. The grotesqueness of this speaks for itself. Yet Mr Johnson has not ruled it out.