Boris Johnson's Conservatism: an insurrection against political reason?

Abstract

An oligarchic Jacobinism – with Boris Johnson as champion of the people – seems to be finding resonance with the wider UK electorate, a meeting of opposites in which class hatreds reverberate with class deference. The seriousness of the current attack on democratic processes derives from the fact that the principal agent dedicated to eviscerating the institutions of the state is located inside the Conservative Party. Johnson's cabinet is dominated by the 'Britannia Unchained' authors and the European Research Group Spartans. This is the end of the 'good chaps' Tory party, and the beginning of a consolidation of a peculiarly English form of authoritarian populism. The construction of a democratic opposition to this lurch to the right requires the broadest possible alliance.