This week in Brexitland, March 23, 2023

Why do people who loathe Boris Johnson loathe him quite as much as we do? Here’s the answer - and it’s not Brexit

Jacob Rees-Mogg has been on the warpath for his old master this week, saying that the Partygate hearing yesterday was essentially Remainers taking revenge for Brexit. I love how Brexiters always play this “revenge for Brexit'“ card - if Brexit is such a wonderful idea, why do so many people still want to take revenge for it?

It’s something that is bandied about regarding Boris Johnson all the time: that the reason Remainers hate him so much is because of his central role in making Brexit happen. But I don’t think this is correct. In fact, I don’t think the reason that so many people dislike Boris Johnson so intensely has very much to do with Brexit at all.

To illustrate this, I will take two other figures central to Brexit, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage. Gove declaring early for Brexit was big. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether Johnson would have had the guts to go for Leave had Gove not done so first. Gove also added an intellectual weight to the Leave campaign it would have struggled to locate elsewhere. And yet, part of me kind of likes Gove. I should declare, simply for transparency, that I know Michael a little personally and the fact that he is actually likeable one on one is perhaps part of my positive feelings toward him. But I still think that even if I’d never met the man, I wouldn’t feel for him anywhere close to the animus that I have for Boris Johnson. No chance.

I have never met Farage, yet even though I sort of hate to admit it, a small part of me kind of admires him a little. I loathe what his mission has done to the country, of course, and his politics revolt me. Despite that, I have to own up to thinking that it takes a lot of guts and a lot of talent to do what he has managed to do. To split from the Conservative party and try and influence them from outside of it would have seemed like madness at the time he started. And yet, he stuck with it, achieved his central mission and outsmarted a lot of the political class along the way. I can’t quite bring myself to loathe Nigel Farage - and certainly not in the way I loathe Johnson. Not even close.

It also isn’t actually political, at least for me. I’m sure there are people that would despise any Tory leader but I don’t fit into that category at all. In fact, as far as recent Conservative leaders go, Johnson, on paper at least, is the closest to my politics: in favour of markets and trade, but also feels that good public services are vitally important. I say that with the knowledges that ascertaining what Boris Johnson’s politics are exactly is tricky given they have been so all over the shop throughout his career, but even with that in mind, I can say that my objection to Mr Johnson is not political or ideological in any solid sense.

So, if it’s not Brexit or wider ideology, what is it then? I suppose I could say here that neither Gove nor Farage were ever prime minister, and so perhaps it is anger at the way Johnson ran the country so shoddily. While I’m obviously furious at the blond-haired blancmange for all of that, I don’t think that gets to the heart of the matter. No, I believe the reason I dislike Johnson with such intensity comes down to two things. And while I’m obviously projecting here, I also firmly believe that this is why a lot of people, deep down, dislike him so much as well.

The first reason is that Boris Johnson lucked into a very easy life and yet doesn’t seem to have a genuine appreciation of this fact. In fact, he’s always had a melancholy and hangdog aura befitting someone who has really had to struggle through life. He seems to simultaneously understand that he’s allowed to get away with murder because of his education and connections, but still somehow believes himself to be hard done by. I find this combination insipid.

Johnson is like the guy who gets to be the general manager of the company simply because his uncle owns the place. He’s the kind of boss who would take you out to get pissed one Tuesday night and then the next morning when you came into work hungover, would give you a bollocking about drinking during the week in front of everyone else. Boris Johnson is someone who wants you to love them but has no love to offer in return.

If this was the only layer, Boris Johnson would be dislikable, but not to the extent that he is. The second reason is what really cements the negative feelings. And you might be tempted to say the first part of this is not entirely his fault, were it not for the fact that he has carefully engendered this inside people’s hearts for decades, so it is entirely by design on his part.

I hate that people don’t see through him. What I mean is, if people wanted to like him because they see in him a lazy, feckless individual who managed to get to the top somehow and enjoyed the insouciance of that, fine. I wouldn’t agree with them, but that’s a relatable thing at the very least. But this isn’t why the people who love Boris Johnson seem to do so. They seem to see in him someone who really cares about their lives. In Johnson, they see a hero who is going to ride to their rescue. Even after everything that’s happened, there is a sizeable group of people in Britain who appear to hold this view.

And what’s clear is that Johnson feels no responsibility around this or to those people who adore him. This is what I really despise about him - his wanton irresponsibility around the power he wields, the power, let us not forget, that he has doggedly pursued his whole life.

I myself have a tiny percentage of the power and reach that Boris Johnson has. And yet I feel a certain responsibility to use even the little influence I have as responsibly as I can manage. I don’t say things I don’t mean when I write - when I write for anyone, not just here. Yes, I’ve written some stupid and downright wrong things now and again but I meant them when I said them. I feel the need to use what little leverage I have with people to try and make the world a somewhat better place.

And I don’t there is anything special about me whatsoever in that regard. I think almost everyone feels the same way about whatever responsibilities they are handed in life. Whether that be over your employees, your own family, whatever it is, the vast majority of us feel some need to do the best moral job we can with what we have. And yet Johnson has demonstrated time and again that he doesn’t have this impulse. He is happy to say whatever he needs to as long as he deems it in his immediate interests. Who cares who might get hurt along the way.

His approach to Northern Ireland is a perfect example. What he did in agreeing to the NI Protocol, then denying what it actually entails for years now, past the point of lunacy, is so amoral it’s mind bending. Further, he clearly has no remorse around it given yesterday, he was happy to vote against Sunak’s humble yet earnest attempt to try and fix some of the mess Johnson had created. You get the sense that Johnson is incapable of grasping what a bad thing he has done, particularly to a part of the world that has already suffered enough. I don’t think I could live with the moral weight of it all, if it had been my doing. Yet Johnson still won’t own up to what he did in even the most basic sense, never mind demonstrate any regret.

Whatever I might think of the politics of Nigel Farage, I believe even he has some form of moral compass. That seems totally missing from Boris Johnson. And that a man that lacking in something so basic and important was ever given the level of power over our country and its political discourse he has been is the greatest tragedy of our times. It is one of the major reasons we are in the shit that we are in right now. And that, not Brexit, is why I loathe Boris Johnson as much as I do. And why I suspect many others feel the same way.

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