When you step back from Britain’s biggest problems – an underperforming economy, a population that hasn’t properly recovered from the pandemic and a political culture that lacks trust – it’s easy to see how some people might conclude that this is all explained by one man. Boris Johnson screwed the country not once but twice, then ran away, chortling when he was found out.
That is certainly the story you might take away from last night’s Brexit: A Very British Civil War. The BBC’s flagship documentary series retelling the referendum story 10 years on puts Johnson right where he likes to be: at the fulcrum of historical events, the man of destiny whose choices change everything.
Watching the first episode, you might well conclude that the most important question around Britain’s relationship with the EU was how “Boris” and “Dave” got along. The personality-driven history of the referendum has no time for minor matters like policy or public opinion – all that matters here is what some posh men said and did.
So here we have Johnson and David Cameron cheerily reminiscing about how they debated which side the former would take while playing tennis at the American ambassador’s private estate in Regent’s Park. It’s all terribly jolly, bringing to mind those lines from The Great Gatsby.
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness… and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
Today, there is something more than a little tragic about the life and times of Johnson. Watch the BBC documentary closely enough and you can see the subtle signs of that tragedy, hidden behind the artfully dishevelled hair and the mock-baffled demeanour: gosh, um, er, cripes, how did I shape the fate of a nation? Beats me, chums.
A lot of Johnson analysis notes that, like Cameron, he went to Eton College, and assumes he must have been part of the same wealthy home counties set as “Dave”. That’s not so, and understanding this is crucial to understanding both the pain and the power of Johnson.
While Cameron grew up in happiness and security in Berkshire, Johnson’s childhood was often chaotic and miserable. His father, Stanley Johnson, was an aspiring politician whose relationship with his wife, Charlotte, was unhappy, to say the least.
In his biography of Johnson, Tom Bower – a friend of Johnson’s – quotes Charlotte Johnson as saying Stanley repeatedly hit her, an account Stanley has disputed. It is not disputed that she suffered a serious mental health crisis when Johnson was just 10 years old.
A striking number of politicians lost a parent in childhood; some psychologists speculate that the loss creates a void that “eminent orphans” seek to fill with power and fame. Johnson’s parents didn’t die during his unhappy childhood, but that void exists nonetheless.
At Eton, he was brilliant but an outsider. One story says that this is where Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson became “Boris”; he turned mockery of his middle name into the comic persona that he has adopted ever since. Previously, he was “Al”, a name still sometimes used in the Johnson family. Whatever he is called, he wouldn’t be the first sad clown to hope the laughter of others will drown out private pain.
All of Johnson’s biographers agree that this childhood made him a loner with few, if any, close friends. In the BBC documentary, his sister Rachel says: “Boris hates being alone.” Both things can be true: Johnson is a man who craves company and noise and attention, but avoids connection.
After Eton and Oxford, the second act of the drama saw Boris establish himself as a regular character on the national stage by way of journalism, politics and sheer charisma. Like him or not, he is interesting and entertaining. He draws the eye. He also turned that charm into a seat in parliament, then the London mayoralty – the only Tory to have won the capital. In his wake, broken promises and alienated colleagues, sure, but a man who isn’t close to anyone has no reason to care about the disappointment of others.
To be fair to the BBC, casting Johnson as the star of the Brexit show makes some sense, since it was the third, pivotal act of his personal drama. Leave may have won without him, but his theatrical shenanigans, umming and ahhing about which way to turn, like some bumbling Hamlet, certainly helped distract political debate away from the fundamental drivers of referendum voting behaviour.
He says the choice threw him into depression and I believe him. Did he really ever believe in Brexit? My best guess is that he didn’t, but saw Leave as the best way to put himself centre stage; to be at the heart of events where he needs to be. In that sense, it worked: not only did it make him prime minister, but it also made him into a figure of true national fascination. Hence, a decade on, we’re still making TV shows and writing columns about his choice.
Johnson’s next act was No 10, and a careless premiership. We all have our own memories of the mess Johnson made of governing, the failures that brought him down. My own is the utter disregard for children and families that saw pubs and theme parks reopened before schools during the pandemic. A generation of children has suffered more than they needed to because Johnson didn’t care enough or surround himself with the right people who could tell him what really matters.
Today, the post-premiership life of Johnson is equally fascinating – but not because he is crashing around centre stage demanding our attention. Quite the opposite. It is a life spent quietly in the countryside with his young wife and their four cherubic children. Not so much in the shadows as in dappled sunlight, where, courtesy of Carrie Johnson’s Instagram, we catch glimpses of this former king of chaos pootling along on boats, or meandering down country lanes with blond-mopped children in perfectly imperfect country attire trailing behind him like eager ducklings.
On the surface, it appears to be an idyllic life. He has money to burn. A huge house complete with a pool (he recently had to cut down some nearby trees because their leaves were clogging the filter). A smart place in London. He writes when he feels like it. He has a wife who is 20-plus years younger than him and together they have a blissful life punctuated by glorious holidays and wholesome family fun.
But even with the filtering and skilful composition of Carrie’s Insta feed, you are left wondering: is this life as dreamy as it looks? It’s the quietness of the framing that sends alarm bells ringing. As we watch Johnson variously cycle down crunchy country paths with children packed in his cargo bike or quietly putt-putting along a waterway to the soundtrack of Nineties pop song “Pure Shores” by All Saints, as Carrie poses with a glass of white wine in the background, you’re left thinking: what has he become? What is he really thinking? Is a lavish, loving retirement really going to be enough to fill the void?
My hunch is no. Almost every former politician I’ve known in nearly 30 years at Westminster still sometimes yearns to go back, to have the power and the attention once again. I have no doubt that Johnson feels that pull as sharply as any and probably more; that he dreams of the moment when the stars align again, and the opportunity arises for him to leave the golden happiness of his retirement and bestride the stage once again.
It’s not a coincidence that he once wrote a biography of Winston Churchill, a “creative-depressive” writer and politician who spent years in the gilded wilderness before being called back to lead the nation.
A sixth act? Don’t rule it out. The tragic drama of Boris Johnson will never really be over.
James Kirkup is a senior fellow of the Social Market Foundation
