Bye Bye BoJo: Did the British Public Turn A Blind Eye To His Lies?

Ten days ago, Boris Johnson - finally - resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The man who seemed unsinkable no matter how many icebergs he hit, finally had to call it quits and announced his resignation on July 7th after almost three years spent in the top job.

Although resignation became increasingly inevitable for BoJo, as, over the course of 2022, he gradually lost the confidence of his party and the British electorate, what is arguably more surprising is how long he lasted in office. 

It was a web of lies and complete disregard for rules that became his undoing. But that same web of lies and attitude is what arguably allowed him to cruise up the higher echelons of British politics.

Very early on, Boris Johnson proved himself to be a person who was above the rules. His Eton school boy days were marred with tales of a sense of superiority, a total disregard for rules and refusal to accept responsibility for his actions. At Oxford, he became involved in various controversial clubs, including the Bullingdon Club and Debate Society, the latter of which seemed to cement his trademark of arguing with a complete disregard for the facts and the truth. The Oxford years also saw the rise of Boris, the womanizer, and seemed to confirm that charm and wit could be used as a decoy for any misdemeanor.

The first months of 2022, the UK media and public discovered ‘partygate’. While the whole of the UK had been placed under a strict lockdown by the Johnson administration, Boris Johnson and his cabinet had deemed it appropriate to host a series of office parties. While the British people were asked to make sacrifices, Boris decided that his own rules didn’t apply to him or his acolytes. A public and media frenzy and outrage followed. 

But how surprising could partygate have been given the nature of the man in charge? The leaked Eaton letters portraying Johnson as a privileged and pathological liar did only emerge in early 2022. But, aside from other examples of the lack of integrity of the Eaton-educated ruling class, there were previous indicators that BoJo was a man that would happily sidestep the truth whenever it was convenient or advantageous for him. 

As a contributor for The Times, he was fired for inventing a quote. A trend he continued as a contributor for the Telegraph, the latter seemingly unbothered with fact-checking. Boris lied to his numerous wives and mistresses, all of which was common knowledge to the British public. 

During the Leave campaign, Boris’s falsehoods took on a more consequential role. Making false claims about the EU, these ranged from the ridiculous, like the EU regulating the shape of bananas, to the utterly damaging, such as the now infamous bus slogan claiming that the UK was sending £350m a week to the EU -  money he insinuated could be used to fund the UK’s NHS. 

But even after the British public realized that these had all been lies as well - that the UK wasn’t actually sending £350m a week to the EU, that certain regions were actually net recipients of EU redistribution, that this would not mean additional money to fund the NHS, that there was no quick and easy way out of the EU and onto “sunlit uplands” - Boris came out unscathed and would eventually make it to the top job in May 2019. 

The rise and fall of Boris Johnson is either a story of total manipulation, or a story of turning a blind-eye. Either the British public was oblivious to BoJo and his cleverly curated image of the bumbling, charming, tea-serving, messy-haired, bike riding, zip-lining buffoon. An image he used to climb up the ranks of power, mask his lies and misdoings, and promote his self-serving interests. Or, in a Boris-like move, they chose to ignore some of the more problematic aspects of Johnson's personality.

Either way, the UK has finally caught on or decided that enough is enough - and let the curtain finally come crashing down on Boris and his lies.