Johnson may be finished but the damage he did lives on

Boris Johnson with Donald Trump. The populist politics both men adopted is now exposed as discredited and exhausted. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

For all the talk by nationalists about how much they value unity, democracy and tradition, nationalism always turns out to be the most divisive, undemocratic and disrespectful political principle imaginable.

The Brexit variety is no different. It was entirely predictable that it would not so much liberate a sovereign nation from its supposed European shackles as unleash a political elite from any constraints whatsoever.