Patience was always thin with this charlatan of a Prime Minister. Loose with the truth, failing to understand the checks and balances of an unwritten constitution, reaching the highest of offices without knowing what to do when he got there, he has always been a high-risk office holder.
He has overstepped the mark again, one hopes for a final time, with his offensive comments at the Tories’ Spring Conference this weekend. He is quoted verbatim below:
‘I know that it’s the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom every time…When the British people voted for Brexit in such large numbers…it’s because they wanted to be free to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself.‘
How crass this man is. Johnson seems unable to undertake his responsibilities, part of which are to heal the wounds of a divided nation and rebuild a new, constructive relationship with the EU, without careless ignorance. How could he equate the appalling war in Ukraine with Brexit? And ironies of ironies, how could he forget Ukraine is trying to join the EU, fighting for the freedom to choose to do so?
Watching the impressive Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, squirm on Sunday morning television when Johnson’s comments were put to him said it all. He was clear Ukraine and Brexit were not ‘analogous’ and the Prime Minister must have been misunderstood. He was not.
The fact that several senior Tories don’t have a problem with Johnson’s comments highlights one of Nigel Farage’s greatest achievements – turning the Conservative Party into the Brexit Party.
I am told wannabe prospective Tory parliamentary candidates cannot now progress if they display any historic Remain instincts publicly. You cannot get a job in Number 10, unless you are a Brexiteer. Good, able Tories such as Dominic Grieve, David Gauke and Rory Stewart are no longer members of a Party led by Johnson. He and his Tory followers seem to forget every recent Tory Prime Minister before Johnson voted Remain.
And turning back to Johnson’s broader political career, it is littered with irresponsibility. The recently released Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe almost certainly owes part of her extended stay in an Iranian jail to Johnson’s earlier careless gaffes when Foreign Secretary. This current Prime Minister is the subject of a police investigation into breaking lockdown rules. He accepted contributions to a £200,000 renovation of his Downing Street flat, claiming he didn’t know of their source. He has brushed up closely to Russians with links to Putin and oligarchs generally in his desire to shovel money into the Tory Party’s coffers. He has repeatedly been caught misleading audiences on issues too numerous to mention.
The Tory Party has been one of the most successful political parties in history, to be fair also recently under Johnson. It has been so due to a core conservative, small ‘c’ philosophy which has been applied pragmatically to current events. Pragmatism has been lost on the issue of Europe and perhaps gone too far in accepting the lack of integrity of its current leader.
If Johnson’s overstepping of the mark with his Brexit/Ukraine comments was an attempt to distract from a looming cost of living crisis, it has failed. It only focuses attention on his personal failings. Public life, indeed the Conservative Party, would surely benefit if he was shown the door by either his parliamentary colleagues, voters, or both.
Inside Right Politics 