Has Johnson run his race too????
The fall of the Donald Trump empire could leave Boris Johnson dangerously exposed
Peter Oborne 44 mins ago
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Evening Standard logo The fall of the Donald Trump empire could leave Boris Johnson dangerously exposed
We have witnessed the last rites of the Trump presidency. True to form they were shameful and horrible. Joe Biden has been declared as the winner and and Donald Trump will have to leave the White House. Removed by force if necessary. Perhaps — if Thursday night’s grotesque ramblings are anything to go by — by the men in white coats.
Donald Trump standing in front of a store© Provided by Evening Standard
But it’s not just Trump’s repellent coterie of aides and advisers — a number of whom may face criminal charges — who will look on their leader’s gruesome departure with horror.
If I was Boris Johnson or his chief adviser Dominic Cummings, I’d be very worried indeed. For the past 15 months Johnson and Cummings — or is it the other way around? — have governed Britain on the Trump model.
The lies. The illegality. An insane rage against long-established institutions. The Trump model worked well for Cummings and Johnson for a time. Not any more it won’t.
There’s been a powerful school of Tory party opinion which was taking heart from the presidential election result.
It sees Donald Trump’s much stronger-than-expected showing in the polls, especially among women and Latino voters, as deeply significant.
It understood Trump’s narrower-than-expected defeat as only a temporary setback for his anti-establishment populism.
The most articulate exponent of this view is David Cameron’s former adviser, Steve Hilton (the transition of Hilton from ultra-moderniser to alt-Right sage is one of the minor marvels of contemporary politics).
As the results came in, Hilton tweeted: “Biden IS The Swamp. Whatever the final outcome, it’s clear that The Swamp was rejected — AGAIN.”
According to this school of thought, the significance of this year’s presidential election is not Biden’s victory. It’s the unexpectedly strong performance of Trump. This argument could not be more wrong. The real lesson of this week is that voters are coming to their senses.
The grown-ups are back in charge. That’s grim tidings for Johnson.
Democrat Biden is not the negligible figure painted by Trump’s British supporters. He will very swiftly reintegrate the US into global politics. He will forge a new set of alliances in Europe with German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron.
Expect a visit to Ireland early into his presidency where Biden will return to his roots in County Louth.
But not to Johnson’s Britain.
We can also forget visits to North Korea and ostentatious flirtations with Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro. Nigel Farage’s booming transatlantic career has come to a grinding halt.
The new politics in Biden’s White House will leave Boris Johnson deeply exposed as the only Trumpian among leaders of modern liberal democratic countries. Instead, he forms part of a small and deeply undistinguished group of global leaders who made the mistake of not keeping their distance.
This puts Johnson in the same category as the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, who developed embarrassingly strong family connections with the Trumps.
Trump’s defeat is also a heavy blow to Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Narendra Modi in India.
The problem for Boris Johnson is that history shows that Britain and the US are tied together politically. Think Churchill and Roosevelt. Thatcher and Reagan. Blair and Clinton.
In order to survive into the medium term, Johnson has no option but to adapt to a return to the status quo that President Biden will usher in. Johnson’s hopes of a generous and fast-tracked trade deal with the US? Forget it.
In the longer term, the question is can Boris Johnson reinvent himself? That’s not certain.
Johnson’s not stupid. He knows that all of his political opponents fit far better into the Biden school of politics than he does. His internal Tory rivals Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt both reflect Biden’s pragmatic liberalism. So too does Labour’s Keir Starmer.
The Trump/Johnson era of British politics is over, meaning than an especially dismal passage of transatlantic political history can be put finally to rest. Can Johnson find a way of surviving without Trump? We’ll see.
