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‘I’m glad I did what I did’
Boris’s usually quiet brother let out an almighty roar when he resigned as transport minister two weeks ago. Mary Riddell meets Jo Johnson, whose departure heralded the latest Brexit earthquakes
Jo Johnson walked out of the Government over Theresa May’s ‘terrible’ Brexit deal. He explains to Mary Riddell why we need a second referendum
The mild-mannered Jo Johnson is an improbable prophet of doom. When he walked out of the Government, declaring Theresa May’s likely Brexit deal ‘a terrible mistake’, he had no inkling of what the coming weeks would bring. With the Conservative Party in turmoil and the Prime Minister facing oblivion, Johnson’s prediction that Britain is facing a crisis comparable to Suez does not sound like hyperbole.
Did he foresee the exodus of former colleagues as appalled as he is by the May deal? ‘No, absolutely not. But I’m glad I did what I did. It was transparently obvious that we would be trapped in a vassal relationship [with the EU].’ Unlike Brexiteers, his brother Boris included, he is crusading for a second referendum that suddenly looks more likely.
‘I shall not cease from mental fight,’ he says. ‘Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.’ Till we have built Jerusalem? ‘Yeah, in the words of the great William Blake.’ If there is a note of self-mockery in his resolve, that is not surprising. Johnson, as unassuming as his older brother is flamboyant, is not an obvious architect of the promised land. Nor does Orpington, his leafy Greater London constituency, much resemble Jerusalem.
We meet on a sunny afternoon in the local Conservative Club, not long after his resignation from the Government. There is football on the television, and a tray of sausage rolls on the buffet bar. A dartboard and a portrait of Winston Churchill hang on the walls. While admirers now speak of the younger Johnson as a future prime minister and a potential master of the political universe, he seems slightly ill at ease even in this small domain.
Johnson seeks out the table where he will be least conspicuous, and when I wonder if we might get the sports commentary turned down a little, he looks aghast. ‘I can’t just walk in here and turn off the television,’ he whispers. But gradually, constituents make their way over to offer support to their MP. ‘Don’t stay at the back,’ one man exhorts him. ‘Stand up and be proud.’
In the eyes of many voters, Johnson has much to be proud of. An avowed Remainer, he long stayed loyal to the PM. His ministerial resignation announcement, in which he denounced Brexit as a ‘con’ on the British people, astounded and heartened like-minded colleagues. In the long aftermath of his outburst, he feels only ‘a massive relief. I felt trapped in the position I was in. Now I feel liberated. I don’t regret my decision for a second.
‘You really don’t throw a ministerial job away lightly. But when the Chequers proposals emerged, my heart started to sink. I wanted the PM to make a success of Brexit. I didn’t say a word to limit her freedom of manoeuvre. Nor have I publicly or privately undermined her. But we got to being days away from Cabinet having to ratify a deal. And I knew that we would be steamrollered by the full weight of the Government PR machine and the terror of no-deal. This was my last chance to be heard and to have some influence on Cabinet colleagues before they signed up to this crazy course of action.’
No one, least of all Johnson, could have predicted how his words would resonate. Though startled by the resignations of senior colleagues, the former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab included, he has long been aware of the ‘tensions that are busting the party apart’. As a faithful Conservative, he is saddened. ‘We’re in the worst of all worlds. This deal doesn’t have a chance of getting through Parliament at the moment.’ Given the state of his party, might he wish one day to ride to its rescue as a future leader? ‘No. I don’t give that a second thought.’
Though respected and liked by colleagues, Jo Johnson has risen silently. Once in charge of David Cameron’s policy unit, he became Universities Minister before moving to transport. A stranger to the limelight that bathed Boris, Jo is now being watched as closely as his ambitious brother.
As the Prime Minister might reflect, to lose one Johnson may be regarded as a misfortune: to lose both looks, in the words of Oscar Wilde, like carelessness. In Jo’s view, he had no option but to oppose the very different agendas of his brother, who resigned as Foreign Secretary in July, and the PM. ‘The Conservative Party can’t support this [Brexit] deal. All our members are rising up against it. The country will feel deceived if we say it’s Brexit when it’s nothing like Brexit. It doesn’t give us trade deals or more controls to our Parliament. It’s a travesty of Brexit, and I don’t think the party should have any part in that deception.’
That sounds like a direct criticism of Boris, on whose prospectus the supposed delusion was built. Jo does not deny it. ‘The case for Brexit was made on rhetorical flourishes and promises and bluster. A lot of promises on which people voted
‘I felt trapped in the position I was in. Now I feel liberated. I don’t regret my decision for a second’
have turned out to be undeliverable. It was a false prospectus. It’s important now that we don’t ram this deal through, using public fear as a crowbar.’
Where Boris seeks to play down the dangers of severing links with Brussels, Jo condemns both a no-deal Brexit and the PM’S alternative. That divergence of views cannot fail, you imagine, to enliven gatherings of the clannish Johnson family. Stanley, the patriarch, and his journalist daughter Rachel are both Remainers, and have endorsed Jo’s revolt. Leo, a broadcaster and environmentalist, has chosen the low profile that his younger brother has now cast aside.
‘It’s not an easy thing to rebel. I’ve never rebelled before on any issue. But actually, for me [the issues] are so stark. It’s just whether you have the political courage to stand up.’ He spoke to no one in his family, Boris included, before his resignation speech, but he broods on their differences. ‘I don’t know how we’ve come to such a radically different view of the world. [But] we’ve managed to unite on the hopelessness of our current position. We both recognise this would be an appalling mistake. I’m really pleased that there is this agreement.’
Presumably they are also bound by fraternal love? ‘Yes, of course. We’re all very close, so it has been very difficult managing disagreement on the most profound question we are both going to face in our political lifetimes. But we are at least united in recognising that the view of the Government will be a catastrophe – not just for the Conservative Party, but for the country.’
For Jo Johnson, love of Europe is bred in the bone. ‘I grew up in Brussels. I watched my father go to work every day for the European Commission. I did a master’s degree in Belgium, I lived and worked in France [as Paris correspondent for the Financial Times]. I’ve always believed we are better off in Europe but not run by Europe.’
If Johnson’s childhood cemented his pro-eu views, it may also have instilled in him the toughness now on public show. When I mention the perception that the Johnsons led a silverspoon existence, he sounds tetchy for the first time. ‘I have to correct you on that, Mary,’ he says stiffly. ‘I am hugely aware of the privileges I had, but it wasn’t silver-spoon in lots of ways.’ It must, on the contrary, have been a difficult beginning, perhaps especially for a youngest child.
Johnson’s artist mother, Charlotte, had a mental illness that left her, in her words, ‘extremely phobic and terrified of all forms of dirt’. During her long stays in hospital, the children were brought up by their father with the help of au pairs. The Johnson parents divorced when Jo was eight.
‘Of course, there were real sadnesses along the way. My mother’s mental issues were very real, and she was in the Maudsley [psychiatric hospital] for a long time, and in clinics in Belgium. It is great that mental health is getting recognition now, and the stigma is diminishing. But yes, it wasn’t all easy. I have a wonderful family. My father is a brilliant father, and my mother a brilliant person who had mental-health issues, but has been wonderfully creative throughout her life. They couldn’t have been more supportive.’
Jo followed Boris to Eton, and then to Oxford, where he was also briefly a member of the Bullingdon Club. It is hard to imagine that the diffident Jo, who sips a Diet Coke as we speak, was a leading light in the notorious drinking society. ‘I don’t think my heart was in it.’ What was the worst thing he did? ‘No, look… it was just normal student moronic behaviour.’
In his first year at Oxford he met his wife, Amelia Gentleman, the Guardian journalist who exposed the Windrush scandal. ‘We met at a friend’s party in her [Amelia’s] bedroom. It was a small party. There wasn’t much room at college.’ They have a daughter and son, aged 14 and 13, and family life, with its cycling and walking holidays, ‘is the most important thing’.
A very different soulmate from his college days is George Osborne, the former chancellor and editor of the Evening Standard. ‘George… I miss him every day in politics. He is a brilliant, brilliant guy, and the Conservative Party would be much stronger for his return.’ Will Osborne come back? ‘I wish he would. I think he has a huge amount to offer. He was a really brilliant figure and we miss him every day. When I resigned, he texted me a thumbs-up [emoji]. I admire him enormously.’
But Osborne, a fellow Remainer, was also responsible for austerity and Project Fear and therefore instrumental in bringing about Brexit. ‘Yes, mistakes were made in the campaign,’
‘I am a tennis addict. I can beat Boris. That’s just for starters. I can beat Rachel. I am not sure I can beat Leo’
Johnson admits, but those errors have not dimmed his admiration. Would Johnson also welcome back David Cameron, who is reported to be seeking a return to government? ‘Who would deny Parliament would benefit from his experience?’ That sounds much more half-hearted, I say. ‘Look, he’s very experienced. But I’m not sure he has said he wants to come back. I don’t want to suggest he’s actively plotting a return. I have no idea.’
Nor does he know whether any other fellow Tory Remainers will resign. ‘We should ask our patient European partners to cut us some slack and give us time to put a referendum before the people, saying: “Right. Now we know the full facts, do we still want to do this?” That’s where I am. And if other colleagues have reached the same position, good for them. I hope they come out and say so. All MPS have different moments in which they feel they can’t take it any more.’
In reaching breaking point, Johnson made himself a catalyst of potentially huge upheaval. For him, there was no other option. ‘The Conservative Party can’t support this deal,’ he reaffirms.
In Leave-voting Orpington, where Johnson has tripled his majority since he was elected in 2010, ‘the mood is shifting. The no-deal scenario involves turning Kent, the Garden of England, into a lorry park. People are waking up to the fact that this is not what they voted for or could possibly want’.
‘This really isn’t about trying to foment a change in leadership,’ he says (at the time of going to press). But, should that happen, it is hard to imagine Johnson would shed a tear for May. Courteous as he is, he also has a ruthless instinct. When I ask him what he does to relax, he says, ‘I am a tennis addict. I can beat Boris. That’s just for starters. I can beat Rachel. Leo is very good – I am not sure I can beat him. We are too competitive to play a match.’
In politics, as in tennis, Jo Johnson is in the game to win. For now he will fight from the back benches against either a nodeal Brexit or the PM’S deal, ordaining that ‘the sixth-largest economy in the world is trapped in a client relationship with the EU, with no say over the rules governing large swathes of our economy. Completely crackers.’
Does he anticipate a return to the front bench any time soon? ‘I have a desire to serve as and when I am asked.’ Should Johnson succeed, with others, in frustrating the Prime Minister’s plan, there is no saying how high he might rise.
For now, he insists, ‘The priority for the country is not bulldozing through a deal that is against the national interest.’ In the spirit of William Blake, Jo Johnson would gladly help forge a different future for Britain. But first, in his unswerving view, the people must decide whether the road to Jerusalem should run through Brussels.