SUPPORTERS of Boris Johnson are backing the former prime minister to make an extraordinary political comeback following the dramatic resignation of Liz Truss.
Just six weeks after he left No 10 for the final time, forced out by his own MPs after one scandal too many, allies are urging him to run again for a second shot at the Tory crown.
If he does, he is likely to find himself up against Rishi Sunak – the former chancellor who is blamed by Johnson’s supporters for bringing him down – and the Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt.
There was no immediate word from Johnson – who was thought to be holidaying with his family in the Caribbean – on his intentions.
But how would a return to Number 10 be met by those in Scotland?
Famously when he showed his face in one of Scotland’s largest cities, he was booed so much he purposefully avoided the front door of Bute House.
As PM, his trips north of the Border saw him visit a few select areas where he was essentially guaranteed a lack of protesting crowds (largely because of the low population density in Orkney). However, that didn’t stop some dedicated Yessers getting out to have their voices heard.
Here we have a look at some choice quotes he’d likely much rather we all forgot.
1 - “Government by a Scot is just not conceivable”
Gordon Brown’s Scottishness is a “personal political disability” and he should not be allowed to become prime minister because of it, Johnson wrote in a diary piece for The Spectator in 2005.
He wrote that Brown should not lead the UK “not just because he is a gloomadon-popping, interfering, high-taxing complicator of life, but mainly because he is a Scot, and government by a Scot is just not conceivable in the current constitutional context”.
Furthering his attack on Brown, Johnson wrote: “Gordon Brown makes so many speeches about ‘Britishness’ and ‘British values’. He’s not really interested in British values. He’s worried about his personal political disability as a Scottish MP, and so he should be.”
Ironically enough Michael Gove has enlisted Brown to help “save the Union” and prevent Johnson from suffering the ultimate embarrassment of “losing” Scotland. Those speeches on British values apparently don’t look so silly to Johnson any longer.
On a side note, in that same piece Johnson said that Scotland is “full of rotten boroughs”. Charming.
2 - “Devolution a disaster”
Johnson really isn’t happy that Scotland elects its own parliament, in fact he said devolution had been a “disaster” and was “Tony Blair’s biggest mistake”.
The Tory spin doctors went into overdrive when they realised that this claim is anathema to essentially everyone in Scotland, and instead tried to say Johnson had been talking about SNP leadership.
Unfortunately for those spin doctors, desperately trying to claim that Brexit will mean more powers for Holyrood, Johnson also said that he does not “see a case” for devolving further powers...
3 - “They will come, cap in hand to Uncle Sugar in London”
Johnson really doesn’t like devolution. In fact, of all the policies and positions this “shapeshifting creep” has taken, this one may be his most consistent.
Writing in The Telegraph in 2001, Johnson wrote that devolution was “unjust” as it allowed “Scots to make their own laws, while free-riding on English taxpayers”.
In an article that starts out in mock-Scots (“Och aye … puir wee students”), he also blasted the fact that “all 75 Scottish MPs voted” to ban fox hunting (how many MPs does Scotland have now again?).
Proving that he does have an occasional insight, in that same article Johnson also made light of “what is still laughably called the United Kingdom”. Apt.
4 - “Verminous Race”
Although not penned by Johnson, he published this “satirical poem” in the right-wing Spectator magazine in 2004, when he was editor.
It called the “Scotch” a “verminous race”, “Canny, pushy, chippy, they’re all over the place”.
It accused Scotland of “polluting our stock, undermining our economy” and said: “Suppress the tartan dwarves and the Wee Frees!”
It ultimately called for a “comprehensive extermination” of Scottish people, finishing with a reference to the Holocaust (“We must not flinch from a solution”). How witty.
5 - “A pound spent in Croydon…”
Boris Johnson was mayor of London for eight years, from 2008-2016. In 2012, he was out bragging about how much work he was doing.
Johnson explained how he was fighting for more funding for the English capital, saying: “My argument to the Treasury is that a pound spent in Croydon is far more of value to the country, on a strict utilitarian calculus, than a pound spent in Strathclyde.
“Indeed,” he went on digging, “you would generate jobs and growth in Strathclyde far more effectively if you invest in Hackney or in Croydon or other parts of London”.
His London focus then should come as a surprise to no-one.
Far from trying to strengthen the Union by investing in the North of England or any of the devolved nations, he believes in trickle-down economics. Fund London, and let the wealth trickle down to the rest of the UK...
Those are far from the only offensive things Johnson has said, as he has been just dreadful to gay men, African people, women, Malaysian women, Muslim women, and women again, to name but a few.
