The truth about Boris Johnson’s ‘betrayal’ myth

These are testing times indeed for longstanding members of the ‘Boris Johnson is nothing like Donald Trump’ fraternity. Once again, the British blond bombshell is at the centre of a giant political controversy in lock step with the American one. And once again he seems perfectly happy to make politics all about himself.

As a longtime Brexiteer, I am one of those who will always be grateful to Johnson for the courage, vision and single-mindedness he showed in getting Brexit over the line following its attempted betrayal by Theresa May and hundreds of MPs in the ‘rotten parliament’ of 2017-19.

Boris recognised that British democracy was in very great trouble. He rode to its rescue in the second half of 2019, knowing all the time that Remainer ultras would throw the kitchen sink at him. Which they did.

But really, his convoluted statement and reasoning this evening about why he must stand down as an MP without delay simply does not hang together.

If he is so convinced that he is the subject of an enormous stitch-up four years down the line by MPs on the Commons privileges committee, which has a Tory majority remember, then why would he not choose to fight it by standing in a forced by-election in his seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip as is his right? After all, a very recent poll showed that he would have an outstanding chance of winning such a contest.

Instead he is ducking out while whipping up the maximum possible dose of fury and discontent within the Tory tribe. His contention that the plot against him is really a plot to overturn Brexit is reminiscent of Trump’s famous soundbite aimed at his own base: ‘They’re not coming after me, they are coming after you – I’m just standing in their way.’

Does he have a point that the inquiries in Whitehall and Westminster about his conduct have been compromised by the apparent partiality of those who headed both – Sue Gray and Harriet Harman respectively? Absolutely. Is he engineering the biggest possible crisis for and ill-feeling towards Rishi Sunak via the manner of his response? Also, absolutely yes.

There are probably a couple of million Tory-leaning voters out there, including many active party members, who will choose to be hoodwinked hook, line and sinker by what, in my view, is a calculated gambit disguised as noble self-sacrifice.

But surely many more will find themselves tiring of the ever-escalating Cult of Boris with its constant psycho-dramas. His resignation honours list, published earlier today, was as crony-orientated as those of other recently departed PMs – even as bad as David Cameron’s which was itself a rank disgrace. 

One senior minister who served under Johnson and started out sympathetic towards him recently told me that his chaotic latter days in office came to resemble the court of Caligula, the Roman emperor viewed himself as a deity. It is perhaps fortunate that there was no available horse to be elevated to the upper chamber of Parliament on Johnson’s recommendation today.

Boris is clearly going to continue to be an enormous thorn in the side of the low-charisma and increasingly John Major-like Rishi Sunak. Perhaps he will make the Tory party entirely ungovernable, leaving the British electorate no option but to allow Keir Starmer to waltz into power.

But from the standpoint of this former admirer, his special pleading would have come across as far more credible had it been laced with an honest acknowledgment of his own multiple failings and unaddressed character flaws. These were, by far, the dominant factors in his humiliating defenestration.

Instead it fixated entirely on burnishing the myth of betrayal and pitching himself as the only true or reliable keeper of the Brexit flame. He deserves the benefit of any doubt as regards being a true Brexiteer – despite many claims that he only swung behind the cause as a short-cut to Downing Street. But reliability is clearly a quality entirely absent from his make-up.