Finton O'Toole: on Boris Johnson
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/08/15/boris-johnson-ham-of-fate/
Johnson was, in his own words, “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley.”
On Saturday, February 20, he texted Prime Minister David Cameron to say he was going to advocate for Brexit.
A few hours later, he texted again to say that he might change his mind and back Remain.
Sometime between then and the following day, he wrote at least two different columns for the Daily Telegraph -
his deadline was looming, so he wrote one passionately arguing for Leave and one arguing that the cost of Brexit would be too high.
(Asked once if he had any convictions, Johnson replied, “Only one - for speeding…”)
Then, early on Sunday evening, he texted Cameron to say that he was about to announce irrevocably that he was backing Leave.
But, as Cameron told his communications director, Craig Oliver, at the time,
Johnson added two remarkable things.
One was that “he doesn’t expect to win, believing Brexit will be ‘crushed.’”
The other was staggering:
“‘He actually said he thought we could leave and still have a seat on the European Council—still making decisions.’”
The expectation - perhaps the hope - of defeat is telling.
Johnson’s anti-EU rhetoric was always a Punch and Judy show, and without the EU to play Judy, the show would be over.
But the belief that Britain would keep its seat on the European Council (which consists of the leaders of each member state and makes most of the EU’s big political decisions),
even if it left the EU, is mind-melting.
Not only was Johnson unconvinced that he was taking the right side on one of the most important questions his country has faced since World War I
but he was unaware of the most basic consequence of Brexit.
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From Oxford he soon sailed into a position as a graduate trainee at The Times.
It was there that he learned a valuable lesson: it pays to fabricate stories.
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it never matters whether the stories are true; what matters is that they are ludicrous enough to fly under the radar of credibility and hit the sweet spot where preexisting prejudices are confirmed.
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So while Trump’s anarchism shades into authoritarianism, Johnson’s shades into a kind of insouciant nihilism.
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“Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a Titanic success of it.”
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There is a fatalistic end-of-days pleasure in the idea of Boris doing his Churchill impressions while the iceberg looms ever closer.
When things are too serious to be contemplated in sobriety, send in the clown.