In a truly brutal dissection of Boris Johnson’s “elastic relationship with the truth”, the former chairman of the Conservative Party warned: “I think it’s a terrible shame that when the British Prime Minister talks about trust and being trusted, BBC and other audiences laugh out loud in his face, and Mr Johnson doesn’t seem to be worried by that.
“I think it’s pretty awful and very sad for our democracy.”
The Tory grandee bemoaned his party leader’s serial dishonesty from lying about his reasons for an election to deceiving the Queen.
Lord Patten insisted: “this campaign has been marked by spectacular delusions and spectacular examples of mendacity along the way, right from ‘get Brexit done’ in the first place; the arguments for holding the election which were spurious; the fact that even the Queen was involved I think in a dishonourable way in an attempt to set up the election.”
Lord Patten warned that Johnson’s unprecedented levels of dishonesty were making British political culture “toxic.”
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Emma Barnett Show, Lord Patten said he thought Boris Johnson and Donald Trump “share some of the same characteristics. I think both of them have a certain, rather elastic relationship with the truth.”
Warning on direction of Conservative party
He explained: “Mr Trump is campaigning the whole time and I think Boris campaigns most of the time without thinking about what the consequences of what he says may be.
Lord Patten also accused Johnson or his senior adviser Dominic Cummings of turning the Conservative Party into a “rather narrow sectarian English nationalist party,” which appeals to Donald Trump who enjoys the company of nationalist demagogues such as the Turkish leader Erdogan.
Worryingly, when BBC radio host Emma Barnett asked Chris Patten about the US trade deal Boris Johnson keeps using as a soundbite, the former Governor of Hong Kong and European Commissioner scoffed: “I don’t actually believe there is… a big trade deal with the USA.
The Tory peer warned that Britain would “have to accept some concessions on regulation… in health, in food safety.”
Accusing Johnson and Cummings of turning the Tory Party into a “narrow sectarian English nationalist party”, he added: “I think that’s grist to Mr Trump’s mill. I think he likes seeing nationalists and he’s prepared to support anybody who is a nationalist, even people like Mr Erdogan.”
Lord Patten said that he believes this election campaign has been overshadowed by “spectacular delusions”.
He added: “We did have a sense of good guys on both sides who knew how far to go, knew there were some lines that they shouldn’t cross, and I think we’ve lost that for the time being, and I think it’s really sad.”
‘I couldn’t support them’
Lord Patten – who cannot vote as a member of the House of Lords – indicated that, if he had a vote, he would find it hard to vote Conservative.
He said: “I couldn’t vote for any candidate who had voted in the past for a no-deal Brexit. Nor could I vote for a candidate who wouldn’t make it clear that in the future he or she wouldn’t vote for a no-deal Brexit.
“Now I’m sure there are some Conservatives who feel quite strongly that they wouldn’t accept a no-deal Brexit, in which case I could support them.
“Otherwise I would be looking on the ballot paper for who would be sensible about Brexit over the next months and years, and who also represented integrity and principle across the board.”
He said: “I couldn’t vote for any candidate who had voted in the past for a no-deal Brexit. Nor could I vote for a candidate who wouldn’t make it clear that in the future he or she wouldn’t vote for a no-deal Brexit.
“Now I’m sure there are some Conservatives who feel quite strongly that they wouldn’t accept a no-deal Brexit, in which case I could support them.
“Otherwise I would be looking on the ballot paper for who would be sensible about Brexit over the next months and years, and who also represented integrity and principle across the board.”
Lord Patten added that he does not believe a “huge trade deal” can be done with the US.
“No, I don’t think we can. We may be able to do some side deals but it won’t be something which is better than the market which we’ve got in Europe at the moment,” he said.
Corbyn writes to Trump demanding NHS treatments protected in post-Brexit US trade deal