But, even as “Stay” supporters panicked over the inevitable shit storm that was to come, a disgusting realisation was dawning on many in the “Leave” camp – Boris Johnson, the bumbling, loose lipped mayor of London, could actually become Prime Minister.
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And those are Britain’s allies talking.
In a 2005 column titled “Getting our knickers in a twist over China”, Johnson suggested that the country’s “cultural influence is virtually nil, and unlikely to increase”. “They have made the West look ineffective; and so now is the time for us to make amends, and to play to our strengths”, Johnson wrote, adding that Britain should send its archeologists to help in the restoration.
In November 2007, he compared USA presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton to a “sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”.
But he was undercut by key ally (and campaign manager) Michael Gove, who pronounced Johnson unfit to serve and ran (with no success whatsoever) for party leader himself.
Germany’s finance minister is signaling a willingness to forget past statements by Boris Johnson, Britain’s new foreign secretary.
But it foretells the reception Johnson is likely to receive among the 27 other European Union foreign ministers during the coming years of fraught negotiations. But you know very well what his style and method are. During the referendum campaign, Johnson chose to enter a British magazine’s competition for an offensive poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “[He has] his back against the wall to defend his country but also with his back against the wall the relationship with Europe should be clear”.
I need a partner with whom I can negotiate and who is clear, credible and reliable.
His notoriously undiplomatic, sometimes insulting comments about other countries and their leaders have prompted some senior diplomats to respond in – for them – uncharacteristically undiplomatic language.
He also hailed the “ruthless clarity” of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for the Assad regime. In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov voiced hopes that “the weightiness of his current position, of course, will certainly prompt a somewhat different rhetoric of a more diplomatic nature”.
He’s foreign secretary? But he offended so many nations…… German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Thursday: “We must let Her Majesty’s new government have a bit of time to make the necessary decisions”.
As a newspaper columnist in the early 2000s, Johnson used a derogatory term for black children in a story about Queen Elizabeth II and the Commonwealth.
As May continued the appointment process on Thursday, Johnson’s appointment was perceived as a joke, ridicule or worse across the world, particularly in the US, Europe and Turkey, where his wit and remarks in the past riled many. Asked whom he would apologize to first, he said “the United States of America will be at the front of the queue”.
When Johnson returned to his London home after the appointment, a neighbour placed a sign next to his house saying: “SORRY WORLD”.
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But it also said May had appointed him “to heal the party and to show the voters… that she takes the referendum outcome seriously”.
