The PM candidate’s unsavoury past is not deterring his supporters
LONDON: Can they trust him? That’s the question Britain’s Conservatives face as they consider whether they really want Boris Johnson (pic) to become the next prime minister.
- Johnson has won backers on both ends of Tory Brexit debate
- If EU talks fail, Johnson will have to choose who to let down
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Boris Johnson
Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Johnson has what looks like an insurmountable lead in the race to succeed Theresa May and a campaign focused on private meetings with potential backers has won him support from Tories on both ends of the Brexit debate.
The biggest risk to his chances could be that one of the factions decides they can’t trust him. There’s plenty of evidence they shouldn’t.
From the very start of Johnson’s career, when he was fired from the Times newspaper for fabricating a quote, he has left employers and colleagues feeling that he deceived them.
As editor of the Spectator, he promised his proprietor, Conrad Black, that he wouldn’t run for Parliament. He ran for Parliament.
As an MP, he assured Tory leader Michael Howard, who had appointed him arts spokesman, that reports of a long-running affair were untrue. They were true.
Running to be mayor of London, he promised not to close ticket offices on the London Underground. He closed them.
Even Johnson’s long-term employer, the Telegraph newspaper, has been forced to confront questions about his reliability.
Defending itself this year against a complaint that Johnson had made inaccurate claims about polling, the newspaper argued that his article was “clearly comically polemical, and could not be read as a serious, empirical, in-depth analysis of factual matters.’’
The press regulator was unimpressed, and told the newspaper to run a correction.
To Johnson’s supporters, the examples people use against him are from too long ago to be relevant.
“People should look at what Boris has delivered,” a spokesman for the candidate said.
“He delivers more than he promises, whether it is election victories, his successes as mayor of London, or his central role in expelling Russian diplomats from Western nations over the Skripal poisoning, his record is continually impressive.”
But what he’s promising now – a wholesale overhaul of the Brexit deal – is something the European Union says is impossible.
If Johnson wins the negotiation with Brussels, he can probably keep all his supporters on board. If he doesn’t, he will have to choose whom to let down.
It’s the same dilemma May faced. When she finally made her choice, her downfall was inevitable.
One Brexit-backing Tory MP is determined it won’t be his faction that’s betrayed.
Speaking anonymously, he said Johnson has promised that May’s deal is dead.
Whenever he is asked about it, he must say that the withdrawal agreement May negotiated has failed and won’t be revived.
If Johnson backslides in his commitments, the staunchest euro-skeptic Tories will withdraw their support for him, even if he’s prime minister by then, the MP said.
That suggests a Johnson government could soon become as fragile and fractious as May’s.
Johnson has been sitting down with MPs one-on-one and discussing their concerns.
His campaign officials say it’s more productive than public campaigning, but it also creates the possibility for different MPs to take away different messages.
Steve Baker, a leading Brexiteer who wants a total renegotiation or a no-deal exit, said he is backing the former foreign secretary.
Priti Patel, a pro-Brexit Conservative who was in the Cabinet with Johnson, is supporting him too.
“At last the British people can feel they have a leader listening to what they want and who can be trusted,” she said in an interview.
In another example of fine-tuning the message to the audience, Johnson told MPs this week he wouldn’t be in favour of suspending Parliament to achieve a no-deal split.
The Times then reported he’d told Brexiteers in private that he isn’t ruling it out.
So why are Tories backing him now? Perhaps they are ambitious for their own careers – it makes sense to back the winner.
Another reason is that they think Johnson will keep winning. The Tories will need a charismatic and pro-Brexit leader to avoid defeat if an election is called soon.
After all, if Johnson can convince MPs to back him, maybe he can co
nvince the country to do the same.
