Here is the Boris Johnson paradox: the Tory party appears to have made up its institutional mind that Boris Johnson will be its next leader and our prime minister.
And yet all the senior Tories I meet – ministers, MPs and especially his supporters – are bracing themselves to be disappointed and even betrayed by him.
They don’t trust him.
But they are aching for him.
One household-name, Johnson-backing, Tory Brexiter, a little the worse for wear at The Spectator’s party last week, told me ‘of course Boris is going to eff us; it’s what he does.’
When he and his colleagues rationalise this contradiction, when they explain why only Johnson will do, they say either that:
- There is no chance of negotiating a better Brexit unless the UK is being led by someone other EU leaders fear is capable of anything – which is the conceit of the Brexiter true believers.
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