52 new york | december 9–22, 2019
several Pride parades, and as foreign secretary, he reversed a ban on
rainbow flags at British embassies. On a trip to Russia, he defended
gay rights, saying at a press conference with Sergei Lavrov that “we
speak up for the LGBT community in Chechnya and elsewhere.”
Islamophobia? Johnson had previously favored the entry of Tur-
key, with 81 million Muslims, into the E.U. He is hostile to the
illiberalism in contemporary Islam but has defended the religion
as a whole: “Everything that most shocks us about Islam now—the
sexism, the intolerance of dissent, the persecution of heresy and
blasphemy, the droning about hell and shaitan, the destruction of
works of art, the ferocious punishments—all of them have been
characteristics of Christian Europe. It wasn’t so long ago that we
were burning books and heretics ourselves.”
Boris also appreciated the moderation of Barack Obama: “He is
patently not the Marxist subversive loony lefty that some of his
detractors allege.” And, of course, he has shown a deep contempt for
Donald Trump. In 2016, he said he was “genuinely worried that
[Trump] could become president ... I was in New York and some
photographers were trying to take a picture of me and a girl walked
down the pavement towards me and she
stopped and she said, ‘Gee, is that Trump?’It
was one of the worst moments.”
The truth is Johnson has a recordasa lib-
eral Tory: a conservative who can celebrate
“our fantastic National Health Service”and
has no interest in politicians’ preaching
about morality. And it was this conservatism
that enabled him to become mayorofLon-
don, a largely Labour city, where hethrived.
He brought back the double-deckerbus;
launched a successful, if unprofitable,bike-
sharing scheme, “Boris Bikes”; backedan
amnesty for illegal immigrants;banned
booze on the tube; raised the recommended
living wage in London; and presidedover
an Olympics that became a public-relations
coup for the entire country. Crime
declined—as it did everywhere. AndBoris
became one of the most famous cyclistsin
the city, careening back and forth,oftenon
his mobile phone. By the end of histerm,a
YouGov poll found that almost twiceasmany Londonersthought
he did a good job as mayor as thosewhodidn’t.
As always, Johnson’s ideologicalflexibilitywaskey—somuchso
that it led him to resist the more doctrinaireforcesinhisownparty.
As mayor, Johnson complained abouttheausteritymeasuresof the
Tory Cameron government. And asprimeminister,hehasimme-
diately ramped up public spendingonthepolice,schools,andhos-
pitals. He shelved a previous proposaltolowerthecorporationtax
and has focused on raising the incomethresholdat whichBritspay
the equivalent of the Social Securitytaxandonraisingthemini-
mum wage nationwide. He has urgedpeopleto“BuyBritish”—a
slogan anathema to market economics.Whetherthisis posturing
or serious, no one knows exactly, butit sure is a sharpmoverhetori-
cally left for the Tories, away from the wealthy and austerity and
toward the working poor and debt.
This encodes a very clear understanding that, in the wake of the
2008 crash, the global elite in London has thrived but the working
and middle classes in the rest of the country have been,at best,
treading water. Johnson has defended the bankers in the City of
London (they pay a large amount of Britain’s taxes) and, as mayor,
presided over the glitterification of the city. But he also understands
that, in this new era, there is widespread support for nationalism
rather than internationalism and for social welfare rather than
unrestricted capitalism. Johnson intuited what the polling now
shows: The “left-right” axis has morphed into an “open-closed”
divide. On the one hand, there are those who have been winners in
the 21st century and who favor the E.U. and international institu-
tions, globalization, free trade, and mass immigration. On the
other, there’s a rising non-elite group that defends the nation-state,
opposes global capitalism, and wants to reduce immigration and
put native-born workers first. Boris has definitely shifted the Tories
into the latter camp, specifically through Brexit, a stance that
appeals to more working-class voters—in exactly the same way that
the GOP’s base has shifted to the less educated.
The public has noticed. In 2019, the polling shows that 48 per-
cent of working-class voters now back the Tories, while only 31 per-
cent back Labour. This means that, in the current election, the
Conservatives find themselves competitive in northern seats, where
Labour was once close to a religion, even as some prosperous Tory
seats in the South have become vulnerable to the Liberal Demo-
crats. Brexit cemented this. But as the former chancellor George
Osborne told me, “trading Oxford West for a shot at Hartlepool is
a hell of a gamble in the medium term.”
Boris’s play for nationalist votes may be
calculated and opportunistic—“He’s
entirely focus-group driven,” says a former
colleague—but it has befuddled and
angered old friends and many in his liberal
family, who still see him as merelyplayact-
ing his support for the ERG, the most pro-
Brexit faction among the Tories. “He thinks
the ERG are nutters,” one priorCabinet
minister told me. His brotherJo quit
Boris’s Cabinet when it became clear that a
no-deal Brexit was on the table. His sister,
Rachel, quit the Tories in 2011 and joined
the “remain” party, the Liberal Democrats,
in 2017. “His brothers and sister don’t
believe him on Europe,” said the minister.
“There’s a lot of pain in the family ... He’s
not the Boris I knew. He’s harder.”IN SPEAKING WITH multiple school
and college contemporaries of Boris’s and
with colleagues and former colleagues,
includingCabinetministers, I soon discovered no deep friendships
orpoliticalnetworks. Compared with the elaborate socialpolitical
networkof, say, David Cameron, he is a loner. “He doesn’t value his
friendsthewayI do. He doesn’t care,” says a former colleague, who
alsosays,“It waslovely to work with him.” “People attach themselves
tohim,”saystheminister. But it rarely feels as if he attaches to them.
Hewasanchoredfor a long time by his marriage to his second wife,
MarinaWheeler, but constantly rocked the marriage with countless
affairs.Somewhoknow him suggest his attachment to consecutive
loversis theonlyway he can securely feel intimacy. Others simply
believethat Borishas had one endless love affair with himself and
thateverythingelse is politics. Some see him as a persona rather
thana person:“Hehas no purpose,” says an embittered old ally. “For
someone so prodigiously talented to have no moralcore is
heartbreaking.”
What struck me in these conversations is how little he seems to
have changed over the years since I knew him—as if his emotional
development were arrested in college. What’s different now is that
a series of lies and betrayals has alienated many. “The British people
are going to have the same experience with Boris that everyone who
has known him have understood,” says the former ally. “They will
feel hugely let down.”
Johnson was brought up with three siblings by a father, Stanley
Johnson, whose braggadocio and humor rival his son’s, and by aIt remainsa ratherstaggering facttoday thatnooneactuallyknows how manychildren Boris has.