Boris Johnson charming his way to become Britain’s ambassador

Boris Johnson charming his way to become Britain’s ambassador

Sunanda K Datta-RayUpdated: Friday, June 21, 2019, 09:11 PM IST
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Former London mayor and Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson leaves his home in London on June 28, 2016. EU leaders attempted to rescue the European project and Prime Minister David Cameron sought to calm fears over Britain's vote to leave the bloc as ratings agencies downgraded the country. Britain has been pitched into uncertainty by the June 23 referendum result, with Cameron announcing his resignation, the economy facing a string of shocks and Scotland making a fresh threat to break away. / AFP PHOTO / ODD ANDERSEN |

When Narendra Modi visited Britain in 2015, David Cameron, then the British prime minister, tried to please him and – even more – the lakhs of British-Indian voters who had paid for the Wembley Stadium jamboree, by proclaiming in public that a future occupant of 10 Downing Street could be an Indian. That hasn’t happened but the most likely contender responded to Mr Modi’s Lok Sabha victory by saying he looked forward “to an even closer partnership between UK-India in the years ahead.”

Always quick with public relations gestures, Mr Johnson lost no time in messaging the victorious Mr Modi, “Congratulations Narendra Modi on your emphatic victory in Indian Election results 2019. A strong endorsement for your optimistic vision of New India.” The author is 54-year-old Boris Johnson, the Blond Bombshell, as he is called because of his unruly mop of platinum blond hair. Improbable as it sounds, Mr Johnson’s grandfather was a Turkish Muslim and his own first wife – they divorced last year — half-Indian. As a former editor of the weekly Spectator, and a weekly columnist in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson understands the uses and abuses of the media. He is therefore probably more known than respected, more admired than trusted.

Mr Johnson won 143 of 313 votes cast in a third-round ballot of Conservative lawmakers and insists that Britain must leave the European Union as scheduled on 31 October. The three others in the contest are the foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove environment secretary and the Pakistani-origin home secretary Sajid Javid.

During his eight-year reign as mayor of London, from 2008 to 2016, Mr Johnson loved to refer to himself as a son-in-law of India. He also wooed ethnic Indian voters by saying he was the “first and only mayor of London with real live relatives in India.” How effective these gimmicks were is open to question however for the Eton and Oxford educated Mr Johnson was succeeded as mayor by Labour’s Sadiq Khan, son of a Pakistani bus driver.

A respected human rights lawyer in her own right, the former Mrs Johnson, who calls herself Dip Wheeler, always using her maiden name, is the daughter of a distinguished BBC journalist, Charles Wheeler, who was posted in India, and his second wife, a niece of the late writer, Khushwant Singh. The Wheeler-Johnson marriage produced four grown-up children and lasted 26 years. Mr Johnson’s amorous affairs are no secret to the British public: In 2004, he was removed from the Conservative party front benches after caught out lying about his sexual involvement with a British journalist and writer.

In the first ballot of Conservative parliamentarians last week, Mr Johnson, a former foreign secretary, received 114 votes, more than double his nearest rival, Mr Hunt, who received only 43. Mr Gove, was in third place with 37 votes. Three other candidates — Mark Harper, Andrea Leadsom and Esther McVey — were eliminated after receiving fewer than 17 votes, while one dropped out saying he accepted that the party was not looking for a “fresh face”. The remaining candidates — except Mr Johnson — took part in a first-ever television debate recently the day before they were scheduled to vote in the second prime ministerial ballot.

Mr Johnson came top in the second ballot with 126 votes and is now the firm front runner in the Tory leadership stakes. Ballots are continuing at the time of writing until two candidates remain, when members of the wider Conservative Party will get a chance to vote for their preferred choice. The final two names will then be put to a postal vote of the 160,000 Tory party members, beginning on 22 June, with the winner expected to be announced about four weeks later, probably in the week beginning 22 July.

Leaving the EU has quickly become the defining issue of the contest, with MPs laying out their views for or against a no-deal withdrawal. Some British commentators predict that the next prime minister will also have to deal with two significant issues. The first is whether or not to call a general election; the second is how to deal with the challenge posed by the Brexit Party formed earlier this year by the ultra-right politician, Nigel Farage .

Seemingly a favourite of Donald Trump’s, the latter is a curious fish in British political waters. Having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after the Maastricht Treaty, which furthered European integration and founded the European Union, he became a founder member of the UK Independence Party which he led from 2006 to 2009 and again from 2010 to 2016. UKIP claims responsibility for the referendum vote to leave the EU. Known as a prominent Eurosceptic since the early 1990s, Mr Farage is noted for his criticism of everything to do with the EU. No one seems particularly surprised at talk of a possible deal between him and Mr Johnson. Not that the latter is suspected of being a closet fascist. But he is bent on survival.

His leadership style has always been talked of more than its substance. Few Londoners are likely to have forgotten the grand launch of his self-service “Boris bikes”, his campaign for a new airport in the Thames estuary — dubbed “Boris Island” - or the image of Mr Johnson stuck on a 20ft-high zipwire while celebrating Team GB’s first gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games. “Johnson delegated detail to others and allowed a series of very able deputies to do the ‘running’ of London while he did the photo ops,” wrote two British politics lecturers, Ben Worthy and Mark Bennister, in a review of his two terms. According to them, he pursued “showy” ideas, from cable cars to buildings, and “constantly chased spontaneous events and opportunities and made headlines.

Journalistic circles had it that as editor of the Spectator, he left the editorial work to his deputy, Stewart Read.

Mr Johnson gave great offence by writing in his Daily Telegraph column that while he doesn’t support a burqa

ban, he thinks them “ridiculous” because they make women look like “letter boxes” and “bank robbers.” He recited a Kipling poem at a Myanmar temple and may have done great harm to the detained Iranian national, Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, by wrongnly suggesting she had been training journalists in Iran. Johnson also faced an angry backlash after reportedly dismissing corporate fears over Brexit by saying “F*** business.”

Nevertheless, he is said to have charm and charisma, and would make a far more effective ambassador for Britain than the dour Theresa May. Whether he will be able to negotiate an advantageous divorce with the EU is another matter. An early general election seems unavoidable.

The writer is the author of several books and a regular media columnist.

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