Perhaps to his own surprise, Boris Johnson finds himself part of a generation of western leaders who are compelled to grapple with much more daunting global issues than they expected a few years back as they rose towards power. Yet whereas Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron or Olaf Scholz all give the impression, to different degrees, that they grasp the interconnected seriousness of the moment and are attempting, with varying records of success, to address it, Johnson is completely different. For him, government is overwhelmingly about getting and maintaining office. Everything else – war, inflation, climate, public health – is secondary.
It is extremely important to understand this overriding priority. It may be impossible otherwise to make sense of some of Johnson’s political choices and stances. The Rwanda deportation row this week is the latest prime example, though it is far from the only one. There is no point trying to understand the attempted deportations as a policy that might be an attempt to solve a genuine problem – global asylum seeking. They can only be understood as performative politics for the benefit of the parts of the Conservative party that hold Johnson’s future in their hands.
