Boris Johnson’s opponents love to accuse him of using the ‘Trump playbook’. Some on the left have become so obsessed with this comparison that they’ve even demanded that the Prime Minister be impeached. But over the past few weeks, Johnson’s behaviour has borne a far closer resemblance to a man he claims to look down on: Jeremy Corbyn.
Both men stand on an anti-politics, anti-establishment platform. When Corbyn became leader he promised a ‘kinder, gentler politics’, and eschewed many of the traditions of the Commons. His advisers still believe that he is going to be the man-of-the-people candidate in the looming election, arguing that attacks from the media only bolster his anti-establishment credentials.
Conversely, Johnson is planning a people vs parliament-themed election, standing up for those who want Brexit against a chaotic and self-indulgent House of Commons. His advisers believe that many of the debates over the rule of law and expelling MPs from the Tory benches have gone over the heads of voters, who just want the government to get on and get Brexit over with.
No one is more vocal about this than Johnson’s top adviser, Dominic Cummings, who this week told reporters that they should ‘get out of London. Go and talk to people who are not rich Remainers’. Westminster has become as fixated on Cummings as it has been on Corbyn’s powerful and rather terrifying aide Seumas Milne.
Milne can only dream of achieving what Cummings has managed in just a couple of months. The Tories have long made a fuss about the way the Labour party appears to be forcing out moderate MPs. But only a handful of backbenchers have trickled out of the Labour party in the past year. Johnson explosively expelled 21 MPs all at once.
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