In the chaos that has resulted from the Brexit vote, not enough has
been written about how this will almost certainly mean that we will
have as Prime Minister someone who in many respects could be
described as a British Donald Trump. They both benefited from
privilege: in the US case with a large fortune and in the British
case through class. They are both populists who gained and enhanced their
popularity through the media, and most of the media loves them. They
both have a habit of mendacity: you could almost imagine Johnson
saying that the promise of £350 million a week extra for the NHS was
‘just a suggestion’. Nick Clegg, former Deputy Prime Minister,
has described
Johnson as like ‘Trump with a thesaurus’ when he says whatever he
wants to win the Brexit vote.
Max
Hastings,
a well known journalist, historian, Conservative and former boss of
Johnson, wrote
four years ago that if Boris Johnson is the answer, “there is
something desperately wrong with the question.” It is worth quoting
later lines from that article:
“If the day ever comes that Boris Johnson becomes tenant of Downing
Street, I shall be among those packing my bags for a new life in
Buenos Aires or suchlike, because it means that Britain has abandoned
its last pretensions to be a serious country.”
“I would not trust him with my wife nor – from painful experience
– my wallet.”
“His chaotic public persona is not an act – he is, indeed,
manically disorganised about everything except his own image
management. He is also a far more ruthless, and frankly nastier,
figure than the public appreciates.”
“I would not take Boris's word about whether it is Monday or
Tuesday.”
In other circumstances you might think this kind of language was distorted by some personal animosity, but unfortunately it all rings
true. Johnson has been sacked from two jobs for lying. As Sonia
Purnell, who has written a biography of Johnson, says:
“Voters, feeling lied to and let down, yearn to be able to believe
in their politicians again. But Johnson, for all his claims to be an
authentic alternative, is more the problem than the answer.” These
traits were very evident in the Brexit campaign: he was happy to let
lies like Turkey was about to join the EU pass if they helped him
win.
He did not lead the Brexit cause because of any long standing
commitment . As Nick Cohen writes:
As late as February, Johnson was saying that leaving would embroil “the government for several years in a fiddly process of negotiating new arrangements, so diverting energy from the real problems of this country”.
Instead his championing of the Brexit side derived from political
opportunism. To be elected leader of the Conservative Party you have
first to be chosen as one of two candidates by MPs. Before the
referendum, although he was very popular among party members, he seemed not to have a great following among MPs, just as Trump is not
popular among senior Republicans. Coming out in favour of Brexit
changed that overnight. Once he had won and deposed David
Cameron, he did not attempt to dispel the uncertainty he had created
but preferred to firm up his chances in the forthcoming election for
leader of the Conservative Party, and therefore become Prime
Minister.
Boris Johnson plays the cultured aristocratic fool, and many love him
for that. But if he becomes Prime Minister, as now seems almost
certain, it may be the British public that ends up feeling played and foolish.
