Former British prime minister Boris Johnson leaves his home in London, on March 21.PETER NICHOLLS/Reuters
Tom Rachman is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Elegantly besuited Oxford students settled at their table, unfailingly polite with the restaurant staff. Opulent dishes arrived, prized vintages were swirled and members of the dining club slid rich pretty mouthfuls between their rich pretty lips. Until, suitably sickened from drink, the posh boys trashed the place.
The Bullingdon Club – a notorious frat for privileged louts, whose past members include Boris Johnson – had another tradition, a final act of contempt: to quell the proprietors, the club members produced wads of cash. Money was power, power was destruction and destruction was just a lark.
Ever since university, Mr. Johnson has pleased himself with similar acts of self-indulgence, gorging his vanity with politics, inebriating himself on dishonesty and finally trashing the place: Britain. At last, the former prime minister seems to have exited politics, resigning his seat in Parliament last Friday.
Only, he isn’t offering to pay for the damage. Everyone else must foot the bill.
The reason for Mr. Johnson’s irritable exit last week was that he got caught again, and there is little he despises more than accountability. A committee was about to report him for misleading Parliament about his administration’s partying in breach of COVID restrictions. So he barged out in a huff.
Fittingly, his comeuppance came the same day that Donald Trump faced a second indictment. History will link these two operators, not just for the harm they inflicted on their countries, but for the remorseless spittle they sprayed at every accusation.
Mr. Johnson – whom The Donald himself once called “Britain Trump” – confirmed their affinity with his indignant letter of resignation. “I am not alone in thinking that there is a witch hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result,” Mr. Johnson wrote.
Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson reframes his failure as others’ villainy, a conspiracy of “elites.” Eventually, hopefully, voters must tire of this drivel.
But the cost of this shameless denial is immense, seeding cynicism across society, shredding respect for the democratic system. In the end, Mr. Johnson’s defining trait is not mussed blond hair. It’s not stammering quips. It is disregard for the suffering of others.
As a political figure, he will be remembered for Brexit, which he sold so masterfully and so deceitfully, despite his own doubts about whether it really was a jolly good idea.
Brexit, if you haven’t noticed, was neither jolly nor good. What it has meant is an economy punctured, billions of pounds hissing away each year, with benefits that nobody can find with telescope or microscope.
Prices have soared. Public services are failing. The public mood is bleak.
Meanwhile, Mr. Johnson is already hinting at a return. “It is very sad to be leaving Parliament – at least for now,” he said Friday.
Regrettably, he will not just vanish, for his ego and his income require that he keep showing off in public, performing his haw-haw “Boris” show for after-dinner speeches and the chortling right-wing press.
Wherever possible, he boasts of his time in power, claiming he “got Brexit done,” and extolling his government’s response to COVID, though he skipped five emergency meetings as the pandemic closed in, and resisted a lockdown so long that, according to a parliamentary report, thousands of people died unnecessarily.
Forced out of Downing Street last summer, Mr. Johnson sat grumpily in his parliamentary seat for one more year. But he appeared to have urgent business elsewhere, notably delivering those paid speeches. In just six months, he’s earned more than $8-million from jabbering and other party tricks.
Polls suggest a landslide at elections next year, leading to the rise of the opposition Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer. For now, his strategy is simple: don’t blow it!
This means failing to say much of anything – and certainly not advocating the sane policy of reversing as much of Brexit as possible. He fears splitting the country anew. But the country has changed: a recent poll showed 61 per cent want to rejoin the EU.
Before he skulked away Friday, Mr. Johnson took one further indulgence: a “resignation honours list,” whereby an outgoing prime minister grants titles to those who have contributed to the country.
Mr. Johnson’s list is an aristocracy of fops, opportunists and incompetents, whose chief qualification was blind support for his blind Brexit. In other words, not rewarding those who contributed to the country, but those who enfeebled it.
With this, he smashes another glass as he storms through the door, leaving holes in the walls, torn curtains, cracked plates.
We, the hoi polloi, must clean up now. We’ll pay his bill too. But we must never, ever let such a man in again.
Tom Rachman