The role is barely mentioned in British law - meaning those who occupy 10 Downing Street are merely first among equals in the British Cabinet, and staying there is a confidence game.īy the end, virtually no one in Britain retained confidence in Boris Johnson. Though Johnson often acted like he was not bound by gravity, the British prime ministership constrained him in ways the American presidency did not constrain Trump.īritain doesn’t have a written constitution and the prime minister is not directly elected. Another assault took place in June, according to multiple witnesses. Senior staff warned Johnson in person, but he promoted Pincher anyway. In the latest Westminster sex scandal - there were nine others in 2022 alone - it turned out that Johnson knew for three years that his loyal lieutenant Chris Pincher had been accused of sexually assaulting young men on multiple occasions. Bellwether columnist Alice Thomson wrote in the Times of London that for the sake of Britain’s democracy, enough is enough. This culture presented as one rule for most, another rule for Johnson’s friends, and no rules for Johnson himself. While Johnson’s myriad scandals are not all directly of his own making, they add up to a culture of disregard for ethics and standards of good governance. In Johnson’s rise and downfall, it’s hard to escape the parallels to Donald Trump.īut compared to Trump’s playbook - from Twitter abuse to sexual misconduct to impeachment and insurrection - the details of Johnson’s scandals can appear baffling. That the leading contenders to replace Johnson are female members from his Brexit wing of the Conservatives - Penny Mordaunt, a trade minister, and Liz Truss, the foreign secretary - says a lot about where Britain is. It’s a rejection of a populist who became unpopular and often lacked a moral compass. Johnson’s ejection from Downing Street is not a rejection of Brexit, or a sign that British conservatism is changing course. He had a special knack for insulting world leaders - winning a competition for writing the most offensive poem about President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that referenced the Turkish leader having sex with a goat. Johnson was responding to Obama urging Britain to vote to stay in the EU, calling it “a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire.”
Johnson earned a special place in hell in the eyes of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, when as mayor of London he dismissed the former president as “part-Kenyan” in Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper in 2016. And so was the dramatic flair that sometimes led him to overstep. Who else would dare turn up for tea with the Queen looking like he just rolled out of bed?īut Johnson is an extremely calculated politician: The messiness was by design. Johnson will be missed by many who dislike traditional politicians: His insults were often hilarious, when they didn’t tip over into racism. He will not be remembered kindly for his bungled initial Covid response - which almost cost him his life. Perhaps if the world gets its act together on climate change, he will also get a hat tip for locking Britain into its net-zero emissions path, overriding his conservative base. It was Johnson’s willingness to fight - for Britain’s exit from the European Union - which won him the keys to Downing Street, and for which his legacy will be chiefly remembered.
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