Since Boris Johnson entered 10 Downing Street last month, numerous historical parallels have been drawn between his political leadership and other conservative figures, ranging from Ronald Reagan to Winston Churchill and, indeed, a more contemporary one in Donald Trump.
Yet, the closest analogy might be with former US President George W. Bush, given the significant similarities between their political playbooks.
Both assumed power with a precarious electoral mandate that they took as cover for radical right-wing action, despite pledges to govern from the political center ground. In addition, Johnson now looks likely to copy the example of Bush by implementing a relentlessly focused campaign to renew his grip on power based on appeals to patriotism at a time of major national challenge.
Like Johnson, Bush was elected with a contested electoral mandate. While the new UK prime minister took office by winning the votes of a majority of only approximately 160,000 Conservative Party members — about 0.2 percent of the UK electorate — in 2000 Bush became the first president since 1888 to win the electoral college despite losing the popular vote, a “feat” that was repeated by Trump in 2016.
Bush’s election mandate was further tarnished by the fact that ultimately it had to be confirmed by the US Supreme Court, after a heavily contested result in Florida. To some significant controversy, the court’s conservative justices overturned the decision of the Florida Supreme Court on its interpretation of Florida law, overriding their normal deference to state courts. This sealed for Bush an official margin of victory in that state of only 537 votes out of the 6 million cast, and further vote recounts were stopped in their tracks.
Despite this slender, contested margin of victory, Bush and the hard-line conservatives in his team, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, made few compromises in what was subsequently a disciplined assumption of power. Rather than governing from the center ground as a “compassionate conservative,” the president proceeded with a radical package of measures. These included one of the largest-ever ($1.35 trillion) tax cuts, which disproportionately favored high-income households; opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, which was the predecessor to the Paris Climate Change Treaty; and the excesses of the “war on terror.”
All the evidence so far indicates that Johnson — who like Bush shares a patrician, “born to rule” mindset — is consolidating power in a similar, nakedly partisan way. While making allusions to liberal, “One Nation” Conservatism, Johnson has created a government of Brexit, for Brexit, by Brexit. The number of MPs in his cabinet who supported “Leave” in the 2016 referendum has doubled compared with that of his predecessor, Theresa May.
All the evidence so far indicates that Johnson — who like Bush shares a patrician, “born to rule” mindset — is consolidating power in a similar, nakedly partisan way.
Andrew Hammond
Already, in the face of public and parliamentary sentiment to the contrary, a central goal of Johnson’s administration appears to be a move toward the much stronger prospect of a no-deal Brexit, which would be the hardest and most disorderly outcome of the UK’s potential exit from the EU. He has already set the nation on a collision course with the EU-27 (the other member nations) by making the scrapping of the so-called Irish backstop, a proposed solution to the post-Brexit problem created by the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, a precondition for further negotiations, let alone a revised compromise deal.
He knows full well that Brussels cannot compromise on this unless an alternative solution to the Irish border situation is found. This is not a tactical play but a strategic necessity for European leaders as it risks undercutting the integrity of the European Single Market, not to mention the Good Friday peace agreement.
Foolish as Johnson’s course of action is, there is a risk that his opponents are underestimating him, just as Bush was underestimated by some Democrats in 2001. To be sure, by the end of his second term Bush turned out to be the least popular president since Gallup began its polling 70 years earlier. But he nonetheless proved successful in pushing through a wide swath of conservative measures. Indeed, in being re-elected in 2004 on a pro-war, perceived patriotic platform, he became the first Republican to do so alongside majorities for his party in both houses of Congress since Herbert Hoover in 1928.
Just as Bush sought to whip up national unity around his re-election campaign in the aftermath of the tragic September 2001 terrorist atrocities, Johnson appears to be playing a similar card as he moves toward his hard-Brexit utopia, in which he seeks to persuade the nation that a no-deal exit is the ultimate patriotic act.
Nonsense though this is, given the economic and political harm it could do to the country, the danger for progressive forces is that it could strike a chord with key sections of the electorate in the short term, before major damage is caused.
This is why, with a potential car crash looming, the new prime minister is already in campaign mode, planning for a snap General Election this fall or spring. His agenda will be deeply damaging for the nation; the key question is whether the UK electorate will become wise to this before the next national ballot or, as with the US electorate and Bush, live to regret the consequences in the years that follow.
- Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics
