IHe began his career as a journalist in 1989 by inventing a quote from scratch. He had to end his term as prime minister on Thursday, July 7, after a final public lie. Boris Johnson liked to compare himself to illustrious British leaders like Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill. The three years he spent in Downing Street, if history remembers them, will remain as a period of political, economic and social regression in one of the liveliest democracies in the world.
By isolating his country from Europe, by clinging to power to the end despite the warnings of his own friends and the loss of confidence of voters, Mr Johnson will have weakened the United Kingdom, and therefore the entire European continent.
That the flamboyant “BoJo” is falling for taking liberties with the truth and flouting the rules should come as no surprise to anyone. These salient traits of his personality were frequently noted long before he came to power in July 2019. His dilettanteism and arrogance have long been masked by his skilfully rebellious mop of hair, his spoiled child’s non-conformity, his real talent for entertainer and his boundless cynicism.
However, from the lie written on his pro-Brexit campaign bus denouncing the “350 million sent to the EU every week”, in 2016, until his refusal to admit that he consented to customs checks in the Irish Sea by signing the agreement to leave the European Union (EU), including his extravagant “suspension” from Parliament , a restive moment, respect for the law and the word given, values which the United Kingdom relies on, has never been its forte.
The resounding victory in the Brexit referendum marked the triumph, in the manner of Trump in the United States, of this cockardious opportunism disguised as anti-establishment dissent. The mayor of London, a libertarian mixed with cosmopolitanism, has turned into a defender, if necessary xenophobic, of English identity and state intervention. Using shock phrases and nationalist-inspired humour, he succeeded in convincing many of his compatriots that the European Union – which he once compared to the IIIe Reich – was a war machine against England.
Massive support for Ukraine
Brought to power to implement the divorce with the EU, a task in which Theresa May had failed, Boris Johnson has since then continued to fuel the illusion about the “dividends” that the country would derive from Brexit. The deception, once masked by Covid-19, is now coming to light: the United Kingdom is doing worse than its neighbors in terms of growth, investment and inflation. Without counting the risks of implosion of the kingdom which induces, in Scotland and Northern Ireland, hostility to Brexit. Laudable, the British Prime Minister’s massive support for Ukraine is not enough to mask a tendency towards isolation on the European scene.
The fall of “Mr Brexit” is not bad news for supporters of a united and strong Europe as threats, including war, mount on the continent. This departure, if it does not call into question the break with the Union – which no British opposition party claims – should make it possible to heal the wounds and to imagine the return to a cordiality seriously undermined between London and the Twenty-Seven. This supposes that the future British leaders, breaking with the demagogy of Mr. Johnson, stop using the European Union as a punching bag.
