New Zealand Listener – June 08, 2019

8 LISTENER JUNE 8 2019

BULLETIN FROM ABROAD

on a skiing trip with him. It was a few

months before the fateful European

Union referendum, and each evening

our après-ski involved heated discus-

sions on whether to leave or remain.

There were three remainers, includ-

ing Johnson’s sister and me. We

tried everything to dissuade him of

his intention to back Brexit, but he

batted away all our arguments with

the firm confidence that leaving the

EU would be a breeze. “They need our

market more than we need theirs,” he

kept saying.

Well, he was wrong about that. But

although often accused of changing

his opinion to whichever position

benefits him most, Johnson has

become an ever-more-determined

Brexiteer. This is partly why the mem-

bership are so keen that he become

prime minister, even though he was

rather hopeless as foreign minister.

Shortly before landing that job, he

won a magazine competition for

writing a rude limerick about the

Turkish president, Recep Tayyip

Erdoğan: “There was a young

fellow from Ankara/who was a

terrific wankerer/till he sowed

his wild oats/with the help of a

goat/but he didn’t even stop to

thankera.

One of his first official visits as

foreign secretary was to Turkey.

That’s the kind of comic situation

that endears Johnson to his fans

and exasperates those who hanker

for a grown-up politician to take the

UK out of this waking nightmare.

So, what now? I don’t know, but I

doubt we’ll be going skiing again

any time soon. l

L

ike all the best horror films, con-

temporary British politics moves

with a slow but inexorable

logic. When you see a strange-

looking buffoon in the first scene, it’s

a safe bet that he’ll turn out to be the

psycho in the gruesome finale.

So it is that a large part of the nation

has long dreaded the idea of Boris

Johnson becoming prime minister, at

the same time knowing in their souls

that it was bound to happen. When

Theresa May finally announced her

resignation last month, after enduring

the worst premiership in modern

history, there was a collective sigh

of relief, swiftly followed by a sharp

intake of breath.

Now all that stands between

Johnson and his tirelessly nurtured

ambition is the Conservative par-

ty’s baroque voting procedure. Let

me try to explain. Johnson is the

overwhelming favourite among

the Tory party membership, who

ultimately decide who will become

leader, and therefore prime minis-

ter. He’s so far ahead of any other

candidate that if it were a sporting

event, it would be cancelled due to

lack of competition.

But although the membership,

which is made up mostly of the

over-sixties, is ga-ga for the floppy

haired, Latin-quoting maverick,

they only have the deciding

vote when the leadership race is

Relief at Theresa

May’s Brexit exit

has been replaced

by fear at who

might replace her.

There was a big boor named Boris

I should make

a full personal

disclosure. I

know Johnson

a bit. Or rather,

I’m friends with

his sister.

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“Have you been trying to fix this yourself?”

whittled down to two contestants. Before that,

there are various rounds of voting, depending on

the number of candidates – at time of writing, nine

have declared. As with musical chairs, whoever

finishes last drops out.

Now, the complicating factor is that, although

Johnson is a hero to the pensioners who fill the

membership ranks, he is widely disliked by his

fellow Tory MPs. And that’s a problem for him,

because they are the people who vote in the initial

rounds before the two finalists go before the

membership.

Those who have worked alongside Johnson

don’t trust him. In the 2016 leadership contest,

Michael Gove, a Brains from Thunderbirds lookalike,

entered the race at the last minute because, he said,

Johnson was “unfit” to be prime minister. Gove was

one of Johnson’s closest allies and a good friend.

You can imagine what his enemies – and there is no

shortage of them in Westminster – think of him.

A

t this stage, I should make a full personal

disclosure. I know Johnson a bit. Or rather,

I’m friends with his sister. Back in 2016, I went

ANDREW

ANTHONY

IN LONDON

Andrew Anthony is an Observer

feature writer and is married to a New

Zealander.