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Illustration by Matt Kenyon
Illustration by Matt Kenyon
Illustration by Matt Kenyon

With Boris Johnson in charge of diplomacy, Britain has insulted the world

This article is more than 7 years old
Jonathan Freedland

Some say his role is merely symbolic. Even so it gives two fingers to the countries whose goodwill we will need

Theresa May could scarcely have made a worse choice of foreign secretary than Boris Johnson. Short of appointing Nigel Farage, or Jeremy Clarkson, the new prime minister could not have made a more reckless decision, one that smacks of the fateful error made by her predecessor – putting the demands of party management ahead of the needs of the country.

I know the counter-arguments. I’ve even heard them made by Foreign Office insiders, as they seek to console themselves about their new boss. In this view, the post of foreign secretary may still technically qualify as one of the “great offices of state”, but the magic went long ago. On any topic that counts, prime ministers make their own foreign policy: just look at Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. The last foreign secretary who actually shaped, rather than merely spouted, the government line was, they say, Ernest Bevin. He held the job seven decades ago.

And this already diminished role was diminished further this week. May deleted two of the most important paragraphs from the job description, handing Brexit negotiations to David Davis and international trade to Liam Fox. On this reading, Johnson will be left with the presentational fluff, serving as a glorified cheerleader charged with making foreigners smile and feel good about brand Britain. Think of him as a minor royal, Prince Andrew with a classics degree. He won’t be able to do much harm.

Besides, why not admire the political cunning? May has ensured a potential rival will now be inside the tent, pissing out. He’ll have little time to pace the tea rooms and the backbenches: you can’t do much plotting at 30,000 feet or at a state dinner in Islamabad.

More importantly, his appointment is just the most visible move in a wider strategy to ensure that leave is in the hands of the leavers. May has tasked Johnson, Davis and Fox – along with Andrea Leadsom at agriculture – with climbing their way out of the abyss into which they led the British people. They laboured for Britain to leave the European Union; now they have to make it a reality. Think of it as Brexit jobs for Brexit workers.

That should gag the anti-EU headbangers, at least for a while. They can hardly accuse the government of going soft on Brexit when it’s their own champions who are in charge. And it could be a win-win for May. If things go horribly wrong during the exit process, she’ll let the three stooges take the blame.

Alternatively, there is the scenario remainers cling to. What if May is planning a Bino – Brexit in name only – in which she complies with the letter, rather than the spirit, of the 23 June verdict? What if we end up with an out that looks a lot like in; what, indeed, if that is the only way to retain our access to the single market?

In that situation, who better to sell this sellout to the British people than the leader of Vote Leave himself? It could be Johnson’s finest hour, lovable Boris ruffling his hair as he looks the voters in the eye and says: “I, your most ardent advocate, believe this is the best deal for Britain.” By installing Johnson at the Foreign Office, May has brought in her own little Nixon – ready for the day she needs to go to China.

The problem with all this political logic is that it’s for domestic use only. It’s not what the rest of the world sees. And, remember, that’s what this job is for: to be our nation’s chief diplomat, our face to the nations of the earth. It’s not just another piece on the Westminster chessboard.

Especially not when it’s Johnson. For he has the unusual distinction of being a British politician people abroad have heard of. May could have put in almost anyone else and our overseas friends and foes would have shrugged. But Boris has an international profile – and it’s not a good one.

The evidence was written in the visage of that US state department spokesman who was told of the new appointment before he had time to adjust his facial muscles. It was there in the boos of the audience at the French ambassador’s Bastille Day reception, which found Johnson’s charm offensive to be more offensive than charm. And it was present in the torrent of strikingly undiplomatic international reactions to his appointment. The French foreign minister bluntly branded his new opposite number a liar.

The roots of this loathing are not complicated. For EU veterans, they go back more than 20 years, to Johnson’s spell as Brussels correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. They remember his louche looseness with the facts, his willingness to invent stories of EU straight-banana absurdity to tickle the prejudices of his readers back home. Always laughed off by their author, these Euromyths nevertheless laid the foundation of Euroscepticism on which the leave vote was built.

That reputation for dishonesty was burnished anew during the referendum campaign. Perhaps we forget that many of our neighbours speak English: they heard the arguments that raged here. They saw Johnson in that bus with its false claim of £350m sent each week to the EU. They saw the posters, warning of the imminent arrival of 76 million Turks on British shores.

They heard Johnson and the others say there was no reason why we couldn’t enjoy all the benefits of EU membership, such as the single market, with none of the costs, such as free movement. They heard him compare the EU to Hitler. No wonder he was seen in Brussels as “the head of a campaign of lies”.

So maybe Johnson’s truncated role is more symbolic than real. But symbols matter. And what does this appointment symbolise, do you think? Two fingers to the 27 nations whose goodwill we will need if we are not to sentence this country to a future of penury.

Too often, before and after 23 June, we acted as if this were all about us, as if this were a private family row that didn’t involve the neighbours. We have failed to absorb how the referendum vote was seen, and felt, by the rest of Europe – as a snub and rejection, as Britain turning its back on its partners of the past 40 years. The first task of the new government was to allay those fears, to reassure the 27 that when Farage turned up at the European parliament after the referendum, like a drunk taunting an ex-wife at a cocktail party, he did not speak for Britain. Yet by making Johnson our public face we have made insult our official response.

And that’s to reckon without the message this sends to the rest of the world, elevating this man who so casually lapses into xenophobic and racist caricature, who just three months ago attacked Barack Obama for his “part-Kenyan” ancestry, who described Africans as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and suggested that that continent’s problem was “not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more”.

Ah, that’s just Boris being Boris, we say, as if life, even international diplomacy, were just one extended episode of Have I Got News for You. But not everyone’s in on the joke. Some countries – po-faced bores that they are – think there are certain things, such as the preservation of a union that has ensured peace and stability in Europe, that actually matter. It’s not they who are being parochial for failing to appreciate the Boris shtick. It’s us, for thinking they should.

I’ve often heard it said that if Boris Johnson were ever to become prime minister, it would be proof that Britain no longer regarded itself as a serious country. Mercifully, that hasn’t happened. But by elevating him in this way, what damning statement have we made about ourselves?

More on this story

More on this story

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  • Boris Johnson must prove he can be taken seriously on world stage

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  • Boris Johnson forced to share mansion with Liam Fox and David Davis

  • Boris Johnson joins UK attempts to calm Brexit security concerns

  • William Hague and Nick Clegg are sharing Chevening. Here are the ground rules . . .

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