(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The only person who could prevent Boris Johnson from becoming Britain’s next prime minister was Boris Johnson, I suggested last week. Now, he’s trying his best to do just that.
In reality, the former mayor of London so personifies the hopes of Brexit Delivered in the minds of his party members that even he couldn’t stand in his own way now. And yet his leadership campaign – in which his trustworthiness and grasp of the issues are being called into question – may be making what will be a difficult job impossible.
Johnson has been at the center of a media scrum in recent days after police were called to the apartment of his 31-year-old girlfriend Carrie Symonds by neighbors who said they heard screaming and other noises that made them fear there was a violent encounter. The police arrived, but decided the issue didn’t merit their intervention.
All of this became public after the neighbors released a recording of the row to the left-leaning Guardian newspaper. Johnson’s supporters accused the neighbors of invading the couple’s privacy and seeking to thwart Johnson’s bid to become prime minister. (They had voted Remain, like most of London, in the 2016 referendum.)
Johnson refused to comment, saying he didn’t want to drag family members and “loved ones” into the media limelight. That might have been the end of it. But on Monday, the Daily Mail carried a photo showing Johnson and Symonds holding hands while seated on garden furniture in what appeared to be a field, a clear suggestion of reconciliation. The photo looked staged. Was it even taken after the row that gave rise to the police visit? Could his newly cropped hair have possibly grown that much in 48 hours?
Compared to the standards of Donald Trump or Silvio Berlusconi, Johnson’s personal life barely counts as salacious. His peccadillos are all well-known. The man considered to be a shoo-in to be the next British prime minister has never touted himself as a social conservative or campaigner for traditional family values.
And yet the bizarre story of the apartment row and the photo matters because, once in office, Johnson will need not only to have the support of Conservative Party members, but also to win arguments with the wider parliament, the British public and the European Union. His conduct during the campaign has complicated his job with all three audiences.
It’s become clear why Johnson’s campaign team want him out on the hustings, where he is charismatic and popular, but not under the scrutiny of media interrogators. He was asked about the photo more than two dozen times in an LBC radio interview and declined to answer. Host Nick Ferrari wouldn’t let it go: Where had the picture come from? Johnson dodged and dodged. Did he know it had been put out there? When was it taken? Is that a state secret? “It’s not a state secret. It just happens to be something I don’t want to get into,” Johnson answers, complaining that “this conversation is now descending into farce.”
And it was, but that wasn’t Ferrari’s fault. He was trying to understand how the likely future prime minister operates. Refusing to comment on the incident in the apartment was one thing; the photo another. The first showed a politician in the midst of a heated domestic argument, suggesting a troubling volatility and lack of stability. The second, however, raises the question of whether he or a close associate attempted to deceive the public he wants to lead.
The broader British public may take a dim view of Johnson’s conduct, as a recent poll showed, but party members who cast the deciding vote will most likely see no evil, in the same way that evangelical Christians who support Trump can look past his own behavior.
Both parties know the bargain they are striking: The goal is to obtain and hold onto power, with all the trickle down that comes with being the party of government. There are also certain expected deliverables – tax cuts and immigration controls, for example. In Johnson’s case, one thing above all is expected to be delivered: Brexit.
On that subject, his campaign hasn’t been any more reassuring to his party audience. His claim that a provision of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade can be used to freeze the status quo after a no-deal Brexit was thoroughly rebuffed by trade experts, a cabinet minister and even the head of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. His plans for a tax cut would be a costly extravagance benefiting the risk, said the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Johnson promises that the European Union, once confronted with determination and a credible threat of a no-deal exit will change its tune is a high-risk gamble; so far, the EU shows no signs of cracking.
The argument that a debased character is a disqualification to high national office was at the center of the Republican critique of former U.S. President Bill Clinton. That seems a very long time ago now. Just as Republicans, in Trump, made their peace with a politician whose personal qualities many find repugnant because he could be useful in office, so U.K. Conservatives seem determined to look through Johnson’s burlesque antics in the hope that he can deliver Brexit and keep their party in power.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Therese Raphael writes editorials on European politics and economics for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.
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