James Kirkup James Kirkup

Boris’s nasty politics would hurt the Tories and Britain

I used to have a lot of time for Boris Johnson. Sometimes whole days, in fact: from 8am until 8pm, I’d ring and text and email him, politely urging him to tell me what he planned to write his exquisitely expensive Telegraph column about, and when he’d deign to send it to me. It was, as others who’ve had the joy of calling him a colleague can attest, maddening. But he always filed, in the end.

I don’t claim that working acquaintance with Boris gives me any unique insight into his soul. In fact, familiarity only makes his real character more obscure. My overall impression of a man famous for being talkative and flamboyant is that the real Boris Johnson, the man concealed beneath onionskin layers of artifice and performance, can be quite guarded and even a bit shy.  

As for his political beliefs, who knows? I used to think that the real Boris was a fairly liberal and internationalist Tory, a man who spoke several languages, had lived abroad and venerated other cultures. A man who governed London as a mayor who embraced and celebrated its diversity and openness to the world – and might hope that the rest of the UK would be similarly open. 

Certainly, he wasn’t one for immigrant-bashing. Quite the contrary. Not too long ago, he was the man who happily rejected Theresa May’s rhetoric and policies on immigration. Less than three years ago, he publicly rejected the ‘tens of thousands’ target and said, in terms, that people wanting big immigration cuts wouldn’t be bothered by migration if the migrants were white. 

Of course, I was wrong about the real Boris and his real principles. Look at him now. Look today at Boris Johnson, who once proclaimed himself a liberal Tory, and consider how far ambition and the referendum have warped him. Having cast his lot in with the Leavers, he appears to think his only play now is to double down on the worst of Leave’s politics and question the patriotism of those who take a different view. 

‘I am troubled with the thought that people are beginning to have genuinely split allegiances,’ Mr Johnson writes of ‘young people’ protesting the decision to leave the EU, adding:

‘A transnational sense of allegiance can weaken the ties between us.’

This isn’t nice.

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