Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, did not incite a mob to invade the legislature, as Donald Trump did on January 6. But he certainly sought to harness the power of the mob, or what he preferred to call “the will of the people”, to intimidate his political opponents.
He accused them of “betrayal” and “surrender”, just as sycophantic newspapers had earlier denounced them as “saboteurs”, and judges as “enemies of the people”. Remainer MPs had to walk a daily gauntlet of jeering thugs in Parliament Square. They received death threats. Their offices were attacked and defaced. One Brexiteer, James Goddard, received a suspended jail sentence for abusing the former Conservative MP Anna Soubry and calling her a Nazi. Far from denouncing such conduct, the Prime Minister dismissed MPs’ complaints about his inflammatory language as “humbug”.
So, following failed former President Trump, Johnson has failed, too. He has resigned from his post as Prime Minister because his reputation is in shatters.
