Johnson's legacy, Britain's tragedy

He couldn't even get Trumpism right

Chris Johns

Not everyone in the UK has been taken in by Johnson. But far too many were conned during the Brexit referendum campaign - now approaching its 7th anniversary. A large number were impressed enough to deliver him an 80+ seat majority in the 2019 General Election. Many of these fans, but by no means all, have been turned off by his lying, incompetence, summary abrogation of international treaties, Partygate, deceit in the House of Commons and, generally, by the trail of destruction always left in his wake. 

It has been noted many times that anyone who comes within his orbit rarely leaves without suffering considerable personal damage. Nevertheless, he retains the affection and approval of many. As baffling as this is to outside observers (me, anyway) - and a few within his own circle - there will, it seems, always be people who like him ‘because he is the sort of bloke I can have a drink with’. (That really is one of the main answers given to pollsters). 

I am not the first to compare Johnson to the worst of the Roman emperors, the ones who promised the crowds bread and circuses. One of Johnson’s countless flaws is that he wasn’t able to deliver either. We might compare his reign to a circus without bread, but that would be unfair to Billy Smart and P T Barnum. Johnson gave his people neither bread - just higher taxes, a catastrophic decline in public service delivery and a flatlining economy - nor well-organised entertainment. If you think the chaos of his administration was entertaining you probably enjoy car crashes and would have revelled in the carnage of the Colosseum. But even Caligula had his friends and hangers-on.

At least part of the Johnson phenomenon must have an explanation buried deep in human psychology. Our tribalism plays an obvious role. Johnson himself, as the veteran political academic Anthony Seldom observed, was almost certainly ‘empty inside’. This chimes with my belief that Johnson has no belief. None at all - not even in himself. The only thing he values is his own entertainment. This stems, I think from his brush with philosophy during his Classical studies at Oxford. The key lesson he learned there was that nothing matters, nothing at all. He is, behaviourally at least, a Nihilist, albeit one of a most superficial kind. A little learning can, indeed be a dangerous thing. Perhaps his dwindling band of admirers share his philosophical tastes.

Johnson’s 1000 word resignation letter was a study in batshit craziness. He condemned the House of Commons Privileges Committee as a ‘kangaroo court’, one rigged to get him out of Parliament. He stated that the Committee had forced his removal. It had no such power. 

That would be a kangaroo court set up, in its current form, by one Boris Johnson. A court with a Conservative majority, at least one of whom, Sir Bernard Jenkin, is a hard-line Brexiteer and ex- deputy Chair of the Tory Party. A court whose judgement needs the ratification of the House of Commons, the one with an 80+ seat Conservative majority. If his party wanted him in Parliament it could have easily kept him there.

The letter complained about Sue Gray, a senior civil servant appointed by Boris Johnson. He attacked Sunak, calling for lower taxes. That’s interesting, a policy proposal coming from somebody called Boris Johnson who, when Prime Minister, presided over the biggest increase in UK taxation the country has ever seen. 

Johnson’s complains about the absence of a free trade deal with the US, something which is utterly unachievable. The Biden administration is reshaping the global economy in a way that displays its complete indifference to free trade. It’s massive and receives far too little attention in the British media and Westminster. Moaning about the absence of a US free trade deal reveals an ex Prime Minister who simply has not been paying attention. Another oft-remarked upon characteristic of the details-free zone that is Boris Johnson.

The biggest lie was Johnson’s assertion that he was sad to leave Parliament. He is running as fast as he can, as far away as he can, fearful of what might have come next. His promise to return to politics was fanciful: follow the money, he’s made millions and will now make tens of millions.

Asking why anyone who would still support or vote for him is as fraught as any enquiry into why so many of us believe in conspiracy theories. Indeed, his supporters invoke the conspiracy theory so beloved of Trumpists, the one that sees ‘the Deep State’ as responsible for all our woes. In the UK they call it ‘the blob’. That the state of the UK today reveals the utter absence of State capacity of any kind, let alone one with any depth, matters not one jot to the true believers. That’s the nature of conspiracy theories: they provide comfort and succour to those who find the chaos of existence too much to bear. Facts, data and evidence matter for nothing. Simple explanations of complex phenomena satisfy a deep human need. 

Hacks in the popular press and charlatans on the political make are only too willing to meet those needs. The second most batshit crazy piece of writing is contained in the Mail on Sunday editorial condemning Johnson’s ‘removal’. Read it and think of an overlapping Venn diagram with the circles labelled Power, Money and Sex. Insatiable desire will, sooner or later,  drive anyone mad: Johnsonian politicians, media hacks and barons can all have their behaviour explained by that simple chart. 

For all its obvious flaws, America’s strength is to be found in its people, companies and technological prowess. Dysfunctional - Trumpian - politics have yet to thwart the progress that these powerful forces still drive. The UK also possesses these things but in far less - and rapidly diminishing - quantities. That’s the true legacy of the pound-shop Trump. A Britain so divorced from reality that some people still think Brexit was a good idea and nobody else is allowed to say that it wasn’t.