Democrat or Demagogue: Boris Johnson at Georgetown

I recently had the opportunity to question Boris Johnson at a Georgetown speaker event in April. The video of my exchange with Mr. Johnson is embedded below. My article on the event is pasted below; it was published in On the Record: https://ontherecordgu.com/event-recap/2024/4/27/democrat-or-demagogue-boris-johnson-at-georgetown

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JIYON CHATTERJEE: On April 11, 2024, former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the Georgetown student body in Gaston Hall for a discussion on “The Global Fight for Democracy” moderated by Mo Elleithee, executive director of the Georgetown Institute for Politics and Public Service. In a conversation characterized by his signature wit and unfiltered loquaciousness, Johnson offered a spirited defense of the democratic system, but inconsistencies in his worldview remained apparent as he struggled to reconcile his rhetoric with his record.

Johnson began his pro-democracy argument by acknowledging that a system of representative democracy is “morally right,” but in his characteristically flowery manner he stressed that the “moral issue butters no parsnips with people.” Instead, to Johnson, the more convincing reason to support democracy is because it produces the most prosperity for society. To support his logic, Johnson repeatedly returned to the example of vaccine innovation, comparing the high efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines produced in Western democracies to the less effective vaccines made under Russia and China’s authoritarian systems.

This was a persuasive argument that played well with the crowd—Johnson’s more tongue-in-cheek point about the relative unpopularity of “Russian technofunk music” to American pop only seemed to help. But he left out one key detail while expounding on his case: Johnson’s support for democratic principles is by no means absolute.

Case in point was the way Johnson approached the topic of his past political ally, Donald Trump, who continuously expresses admiration for authoritarian regimes while disrespecting American democracy at home. Despite vigorously arguing for Western financial support to the Ukrainian military, Johnson provided a rather unfazed response when asked about Trump’s new plan to end the war by ceding Ukrainian territories to Russia. Though he initially mussed his blonde hair in a possible show of disapproval at the mention of this proposal, Johnson went on to explain that he is “cautiously hopeful” that Trump’s rhetoric will not be matched by action. He provided a fairly thin justification related to Trump’s decision to arm Ukraine during his term, unlike the Obama-Biden administration after the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. “Judging by what [Trump] did and [thinking] about what it might mean to a new president to have a triumph for Putin…I cannot believe that that is seriously what he would want,” Johnson concluded. 

But the real danger of Trump is not his plan to end the war in Ukraine, nor his unsavory admiration for Putin: it is his flagrant attacks on American democracy by encouraging mob violence against political institutions when elections don’t go his way. On this matter, Johnson started by stating that the January 6th Capitol riot “was terrible,” but seemingly went on to begin chastising Trump’s “opponents” for pursuing legal charges against him before restraining himself from completing the thought. He then immediately pivoted to praising Trump’s uniquely aggressive military actions against the authoritarianism of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, as if this is sufficient proof of the former president’s pro-democracy credentials. “With the exception of the point I’ve just made [regarding January 6th]…I think that there was lots of encouraging stuff in the period from 2016 to 2020,” he stated. In Johnson’s view, attempting a coup at home in the West might be bad—but, if one is willing to bomb evil authoritarians in the Middle East, then all is forgiven. Leading by example seems to matter very little to him.

Johnson’s hypocrisy became ever more apparent in the Q&A with the student audience when defending the policies of his own country. In response to a question about the British government’s refusal to return the Parthenon marbles to Greece from the British Museum, Johnson replied that, despite his personal respect for Greek culture, his “basic anxiety is the slippery slope argument…the London museums…they are the repository of the treasures of all humanity.” Implied in his response is a darker argument: returning the Greek sculptures would open the door for the return of other artifacts on display in Britain as a result of colonial looting—artifacts such as India’s Kohinoor diamond and the Benin Bronzes pilfered from Nigeria. Colonial looting, of course, is one of history’s most undemocratic acts. The fact that Johnson is arrogant enough to believe stolen items can only be properly appreciated and displayed in Britain, rather than their countries of origin, indicates just how little he cares about repairing the undemocratic wrongs of Britain’s past.

His lack of care about promoting British respect for democracy is not limited to history: Johnson actively opposes democratic movements in the U.K. today. When asked about whether he would respect the will of Scotland if it voted for independence, given that support for Scottish nationalism is at an all-time high, Johnson replied “I’m a democrat…I would of course respect the will of the people” but hurriedly added his skepticism that the Scottish would vote for independence. What Johnson neglected to mention was that, as prime minister in 2022, he rejected Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s request for an independence referendum despite repeated electoral victories in Scotland for the pro-independence Scottish National Party. Johnson’s real position doesn’t seem very democratic, since he doesn’t even want to give Scotland the option of self-determination.

On the defining issue of his premiership—Britain’s exit from the European Union—Johnson failed to convincingly connect his actions to a respect for democratic norms. When a British graduate student at Georgetown challenged Johnson about his decision to suspend Parliament to unilaterally allow Brexit to happen—an action that was later ruled illegal by the U.K supreme court—he justified it by claiming “there was a concerted attempt by the courts, by the U.K. establishment, to try to frustrate the will of the people, and what they wanted to do was prevent Brexit from taking place.” Trashing the courts and preventing elected representatives from having a say on a crucial national policy certainly don’t sound like the actions of a “democrat”—instead, they sound like the preferred methods of a demagogue.

In the last student question of the event, I asked Johnson about whether Brexit even was a truly democratic decision, given that the binary choice to “Leave” or “Remain” didn’t leave space for the public to express a more nuanced view (a “soft” Brexit versus a “hard” Brexit, for example) and now most Britons regret the decision to leave due to the economic damage caused by the policy. He seemed agitated by the question, interrupting multiple times with outraged proclamations like “rubbish” and “rhubarb!” When responding, the best he could do was filibuster about U.S. elections for over a minute before finally directly addressing the question with a flimsy reply: “In the Brexit referendum campaign, the issues were exhaustively debated.” It seems odd, then, that a pro-democracy figure like himself would want to shut down such debate by proroguing Parliament.

At the beginning of his remarks, Johnson stated that “democracy is the system by which we kick the bastards out.” On July 7, 2022, after losing the support of most of his allies in government, Johnson was forced to resign in disgrace from his post of Prime Minister of the U.K. due to the Partygate scandal. His Conservative Party has not recovered since; they are on track to soundly lose the upcoming general election. It seems that, in the end, British democracy was no friend to Boris Johnson. It remains an open question whether he is any friend to democracy.