Does Boris Johnson lack moral fibre?

Once upon a time the idea of moral corruption at the heart of power was often shorthand for a journalist having a profound difference of opinion with government policy. Columnists from the Mail to the Guardian make a damn good living by being morally outraged on a daily basis. With the Johnson administration, however, accusations of a decency deficit feel different because of a lack of moral fibre in the Prime Minister.

I don’t want to over-egg this – in no way am I saying that Johnson goes out of his way to do wrong, and I do not think the man is “evil”. Indeed, his “loose morality” (for example having an elastic relationship with the truth) is seen positively by many. By force of character, Johnson is a born winner and people crawl over broken glass to support him. But it also means he has a corrupted understanding of loyalty, fairness, service, respect, and belief. This creates the supreme campaigner, but an inability to govern, and is what’s driving this ceaseless lurch from one scandal to another.

Johnson’s issues with loyalty in his private life are well documented. The fact he is father of seven children from four mothers demonstrates a problem with commitment. This is further compounded by the fact he has strayed from the marital bed on numerous occasions and publicly denied being father to one of his children. These are facts I find deeply troublesome — but I’m a prude and nobody else seems to care.

When it comes to politics, Johnson can be deeply loyal. For example, he told all Tory MPs to “form a square around the Pritster” when Priti Patel was found to be in breach of the ministerial code in relation to the way she treated (allegedly bullied) civil servants. This is a charge that would have led to her being sacked under any other Prime Minster – but not Johnson. He chucked all his political weight behind her. You can see the same sort of loyalty when Johnson was willing to rip up the Parliamentary rule book in defence of Owen Paterson, a man guilty of breaking Parliamentary lobbying rules. Time and again, Johnson demonstrates absolute loyalty to his devoted lieutenants.

But all hell breaks loose when Johnson doesn’t have loyalty served toward him. 21 MPs got kicked out of the parliamentary Conservative Party, including two ex-Chancellors and Churchill’s grandson, when they didn’t show fidelity to Johnson’s vision of Brexit. This was a breath-taking example of multiple assassination; a Pablo Escobar inspired political move in how to engender loyalty from a parliamentary party. This also means the Conservative backbenches are full of MPs who should be in ministerial positions but have been cut adrift for not being a true believer in the personality cult of Boris.

When the boot was on the other foot and loyalty was called for by Prime Ministers Cameron and May, Johnson ran — but only far enough to stick a hatchet in their backs. This demonstrates a profoundly unfair, unequal, understanding of how relationships and loyalty work. Johnson is as good a political partner as he is a matrimonial one.

This corrupted sense of loyalty and fairness is driven by Johnson’s intense sense of self-worth. Jay Elwes explored these themes here, pitting Jeremy Corbyn against Johnson. Corbyn was so intent to serve, he couldn’t lead, while Johnson is a man of such intense egotism that he cannot serve. This means Johnson, as his alter-ego “Boris”, is the ultimate one-man campaign machine and won that 80-seat majority through sheer force of personality. However, that intense sense of self-worth means he cannot serve, which is so essential when governing.

This narcissism also means Johnson struggles to respect anything other than himself. The Johnson-Cummings union, which collapsed in such spectacular style, stood in direct violation of Conservatism, as defined by the defence of the institutions upon which our hard-won British and Western freedoms are built. It was a coalition of disrespect, with no institution which couldn’t be vandalised or belittled. The civil service, Parliament, the judiciary, the Union of the United Kingdom, moderate members of the Tory Party, the BBC and the monarchy were all, at some point, pitted against Number 10. At first, this was in the name of Brexit, and to a certain extent needed to be done…to “Get Brexit Done”. But the destruction continues through vehicles such as culture wars. “Build Back Better”, a glib campaigning phase, and “Levelling Up”, an excuse to pork barrel the red wall.

Cummings is more than happy to tell anyone who will listen to his self-aggrandising gobbledygook on Substack that his project for reform wasn’t really about Brexit, but the destructive notion that all institutions of the United Kingdom were dysfunctional and needed pulling down. It was an all-consuming self-worth that meant Johnson “Got Brexit Done”, for good or bad, but the politics of commotion continues to drive the post-Cummings Boris.

Belief, not destruction, drives great political leaders. Johnson’s political hero, Churchill, had a belief in this country, its history, institutions, people, and democracy. When you read Johnson’s biography of Churchill, it’s clear he doesn’t understand this belief system, so he flits from one “Boy’s Own” story to another. Ultimately, Johnson’s depiction of Churchill says less about the great man than it does about the way Johnson sees himself in heroic form: that’s quite an achievement of hubris. Roy Jenkins’s biography of Churchill is the opposite. He writes from a carefully researched understanding of both the flaws and genius of Churchill’s personality, which drove a belief system capable of standing up to Nazi Germany. Johnson could never give that level of insight because the foundations of Churchill’s character are so foreign to him.

Johnson simply can’t get his head around the Golden Rule, the basic tenet of all morality: do as you would be done by. This means he isn’t mad, or even bad, but he lacks a belief system, outside of ego, from which he can build. He’s like a great sportsman. He’s grown used to teammates being there to serve him, but will never be able to make that leap into management. He’s the political equivalent of Maradona, with Brexit as his “Hand of God” moment. Let’s hope that his end will be quicker than the Argentinian’s — and less painful to watch.