Kevin Rafferty

Opinion | Welcome to Boris Johnson’s theatre of the absurd. But no one should laugh

It is Britain’s funeral if it crashes out of the EU – recession and a break-up of the UK are the more likely outcomes, rather than the new prime minister’s promise of a magical revolution

Worse, Britain risks losing its voice in the international, rules-based order it helped to build, just when the unravelling system most needs support

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Kevin Rafferty

Published: 5:00am, 27 Jul 2019Updated: 6:33am, 27 Jul 2019

Conservative Party members have duly anointed Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson as their leader and thus prime minister of the United Kingdom. Johnson immediately promised an end to the Brexit circus games in which British politicians have played the clowns for three years, making the UK a laughing stock.

Within minutes of gaining Queen Elizabeth’s blessing and before entering 10 Downing Street, Johnson promised a magical revolution, in which Britain will be transformed by increased spending on education, health and social care, establishing free ports, putting 20,000 more police on the streets, and by leaving the European Union within 99 days.

Johnson claimed that his favourite movie scene was “the multiple retribution killings at the end of The Godfather”. After six hours of Johnson in power, 18 of Theresa May’s cabinet ministers had quit or been fired.

Johnson replaced them with right-wing Brexiteers and loyalists, who will do his bidding and take Britain out of the EU to the promised land at the end of the rainbow, a free Britain with a free trade polity.

Is it the promise of magic or the theatre of the absurd? Being both British and Irish, I do not know whether to laugh or to cry. Johnson’s games herald danger far beyond the small misty island that still thinks it is the centre of the earth.