Horrifying details of Boris Johnson’s scant understanding of Britain’s split with the EU have resurfaced as Britain continues to grapple with life outside the single market.
A substack penned in 2021 by his former chief aide Dominic Cummings demonstrates that it wasn’t until 2020 that the ex-PM finally got to grips with what an exit from the bloc looked like.
Cummings recollects that Johnson had to be kept out of negotiations as much as possible because he “didn’t understand them”.
“He wouldn’t read the papers. He constantly shifted positions, sometimes urging maximum aggression then suddenly collapsing.”
Johnson’s former ally recollected that it was all he could do to keep the so-called “trolley” from bouncing between “relatively narrow rails”.
And then the moment of realisation finally arrived:
It wasn’t until 25 September 2020 that he finally understood even vaguely what leaving the Customs Union meant. I will never forget the look on his face when, after listening to Frost in a meeting on the final stage of the negotiation, he said, ‘No no no Frosty, fuck this, what happens with a deal?’ And Frost looked up from his paper and said, ‘PM, this is what happens with a deal, that’s what leaving the Customs Union means.’ The PM’s face was priceless. He sat back in his chair and looked around the room with appalled disbelief and shook his head. Horrified officials’ phones pinged around the Cabinet table. One very senior official texted me, ‘Now I realise how you managed to get Brexit done 😂’. As Hunter S Thompson said, humour in politics is usually dark.
The extracts have come to light as Sir Keir Starmer continues his UK-EU ‘reset’ effort with meetings with leaders across Europe.
The Prime Minister travelled from Berlin to Paris as he undertakes two days of meetings designed to show the UK wants to reposition its relationship with the European Union following years of Brexit troubles.
Related: Man who threw objects at Nigel Farage on campaign bus gets suspended sentence
