Boris Johnson won over British voters, Labor strongholds in the Midlands and the North of England, including the constituency of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Facing London, part of the French right dreams of replicating the rebirth of the British conservatives by taking the same route: patriotic and social, in the words of the most conquered members of the party Les Républicains (LR). Populist, say others. All agree that "BoJo" has been able to reach those whom essayist David Goodhart calls "somewhere" (as opposed to the global elite "anywhere".
If the seduction is strong, the readings are different. Among the right-most LR, the regional councilor Sébastien Pilard greeted in an interview with the weekly Current values "A return to the sources of conservatism". "By assuming a clear, conservative and popular line on the bottom, transgressive and dynamic on the form, Boris Johnson has proved that the right can be reconciled with the popular and working classes", he believes.
Despite the obvious differences in electoral sociology between the two countries and the considerable place of Brexit in the vote on December 12, 2019, parallels are emerging. A few months ago, the ex-LR Valérie Pécresse told in her book And that's what changed everything, having gone to consult former British Prime Minister David Cameron on the concept of "Compassionate conservatism" (compassionate conservatism), popularized in its time by George W. Bush in the United States, then recovered in the 2010s by the British conservatives.
"Becoming a popular right"
"What can be the political space of a social right and what is the right strategy to adopt when we are in opposition to a Tony Blair who, like Macron, has delighted the business community on the right by being very liberal? ", wondered at the time the president of the Ile-de-France region. Today, Mme Pécresse regrets that the British election did not leave a third way between the pro-Brexit right and the radical left of Jeremy Corbin. "I fear binary choices, they bring Boris Johnson to power", she added, while doubting the realism of the latter’s social promises in the constrained economic context of an exit from the European Union.
