To fix Brexit, Britain is ready to send in the clown
Boris Johnson is almost certain to be the country’s next prime minister. Cue the sad laughter and increasing irrelevance
When the 21st century history is written about the decline and fall of the United Kingdom as a consequential global power, this may be the encyclopedia listing for Boris Johnson, the overwhelming favourite to succeed Theresa May as prime minister: Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson ( born 19 June 1964), British politician, serial liar and snake-oil salesman; chief architect of the disastrous Brexit policy; notoriously lazy, uninformed and homophobic; often compared to Donald Trump for his use of racist language, anti-Muslim stereotypes and the demeaning treatment of women, but very different from Trump in at least one respect: on occasion, Boris can be very funny.
Yes, during this next stage of Britain’s painful slow-motion national suicide, we can at least be consoled that the country’s blond-haired class clown will leave ’em laughing as Britain fades resolutely into obscurity.
How about the time at the London Olympics when, as the city’s mayor, he ended up dangling on a zipwire waving two plastic flags in a silly helmet, pleading “Can you get me a rope?” Or when he tried to convince the Chinese at the Beijing Olympics that the British invented ping pong “on the dining tables of England in the 19thcentury and called it ‘wiff waff’”?
But beyond Johnson’s comic relief, there is his dark side. And that is what has defined his controversial political career, including his much-ridiculed tenure as Britain’s foreign secretary.
Incredibly, it may also shape his country’s future.
Last year, Johnson described Muslim women who wore burqas and niqabs as “looking like letter boxes (and) bank robbers.” He once wrote that the Queen loves the Commonwealth because “it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-wearing picaninnies.” And, as foreign secretary, he wrote an insulting poem about the president of Turkey suggesting he had sex with a goat.
In spite of that, it is now virtually certain that Johnson will be Britain’s next prime minister. This much became clear on Thursday in the first preliminary vote by Conservative MPs to choose a successor to May.
Johnson secured nearly three times as many votes as his nearest rival and — unless he opens his mouth once too often in the next few weeks and blows it — he appears unbeatable when the final choice is made in the week of July 22 by the general membership of the Conservative party.
It seems that Johnson’s eccentric candidacy will turn out to be a perfect fit in today’s imploding Tory England.
For a large, diverse country such as the U.K., the Conservatives have come up with a narrow process to choose a new prime minister. Eligible voters will only include the 160,000 grassroots members of their party — in a country of 67 million people.
Even worse is the demographic breakdown of those people. They are largely older voters (56 per cent over the age of 55), overwhelmingly white (97 per cent), mainly male (70 per cent), very well-off and far more right wing than the country at large.
And not surprisingly, they are rabidly pro-Brexit. Two-thirds of them want Britain to leave the European Union as soon as possible and even without a deal with the EU — no matter how disruptive that will be.
But there are no signs that they — or Johnson — will get their way.
Britain is still bitterly divided over Brexit, and Parliament is at an impasse.
The pro-EU “Remain” side now appears to be ahead, and pressure for a second referendum is building.
If Johnson risks a new election, it seems likely there would be another deadlocked Parliament or, even worse for the Tories, a Jeremy Corbyn Labour victory.
So, even as Britain’s court jester assumes power, its existential Brexit nightmare seems far from over.