what does boris johnson think of his comparison to trump

President Trump shakes hands with Boris Johnson during the U.Due north. General Assembly in 2017. The Britain and the United States are about to exist led by two remarkably like figures. Evan Vucci/AP hide caption

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Evan Vucci/AP

President Trump shakes hands with Boris Johnson during the U.Due north. General Assembly in 2017. The United Kingdom and the The states are about to be led by two remarkably like figures.

Evan Vucci/AP

At a time of polarization and political anarchy, the United Kingdom and the United states of america are almost to be led by two remarkably similar figures. On Tuesday, Great britain'southward ruling Conservative Party elected Boris Johnson as their leader by an overwhelming margin, sending him to No. 10 Downing Street. He volition take role on Wednesday.

Like Trump, Johnson is a larger-than-life populist who has made controlling immigration and restoring his nation'south standing in the world cardinal problems in recent years. (Different Trump, he is given to speaking in Latin, making ancient historical allusions and has written a biography of Winston Churchill).

Johnson has been defendant of extramarital affairs, and he has a reputation for playing fast and loose with the facts.

Last calendar week, Trump predicted Johnson would "do a great task" and that they would get along well.

"He's a dissimilar kind of guy, but they say I'grand a different kind of guy, too," Trump said.

Johnson leaves his office on Monday in London. He volition accept office on Wednesday. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images hibernate caption

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Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Johnson leaves his part on Monday in London. He volition take office on Midweek.

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

How these men accept come up to lead their countries says a lot about the political forces roiling much of the West in contempo years. Past 2016, the U.S. and the U.K. were poised for political earthquakes. Key groups of voters in both countries were frustrated with institution politics, suffering from the negative effects of globalization and worried that foreigners would change their communities.

Johnson and Trump responded. On the campaign trail, Trump famously promised to build a wall along the Mexican border to continue out undocumented immigrants, proverb that Mexicans were "bringing drugs. They're bringing criminal offence. They're rapists."

In Britain, Johnson helped atomic number 82 the Brexit entrada, vowing to accept back command of the country's borders past leaving the European Spousal relationship, the political and economic union that allows people and appurtenances to move freely among all 28 fellow member states. The Brexit campaign suggested that Turkey would bring together the European union and become a back door for Syrian refugees to enter the United Kingdom.

"That's scare-mongering, Boris, and you should be aback," London Mayor Sadiq Khan said in a debate days before the referendum.

"Equally far as I know, the last fourth dimension I looked, the regime wants to accelerate Turkish membership," Johnson shot back. In fact, Turkish membership in the Eu is not remotely on the horizon.

Like Trump, Johnson has also emphasized his unease with the irresolute face of his homeland, using language that plays well with much of his white base but angers minorities and urban liberals. For instance, in his cavalcade in The Daily Telegraph, Johnson wrote in 2017 that women in burqas await similar mailboxes or bank robbers.

Paul Whiteley, a professor of authorities at the University of Essex, says Johnson's message was articulate: "The 'other,' in very broad terms, is a threat," Whiteley says.

That bulletin is able to resonate in parts of England, Whiteley says, considering clearing from Eastern Europe has afflicted public services, creating long waits for wellness care and overcrowded classrooms with students who don't accept a strong command of English.

"In that location is a fear in poor communities that the few jobs they have will be taken away by immigrants, but too a cultural change into something that's unrecognizable and alien," Whiteley said.

Both Johnson and Trump accept pledged to return their countries to a mythical, amend age. Trump speaks fondly of what he calls the "erstwhile days," when Detroit ruled the auto industry, when virtually people said "Merry Christmas" during the holidays and — as Trump recalls it — people could only beat up protesters at a political rally.

Many Brexiteers come across the adept erstwhile days as the era of World War Two, when the U.Thousand. stood upwards to the Nazis, or even before — the age of the British Empire. Johnson describes Brexit as an opportunity for the United Kingdom to forge an independent futurity, unshackled from the Eu.

"I retrieve Winston Churchill was absolutely right when he said that the empires of the time to come would be empires of the mind," Johnson said in a 2016 voice communication. "In expressing our values abroad, I believe that global U.k. is a soft power superpower."

Brian Klaas, an banana professor in global politics at University Higher London, says both Johnson and Trump have tapped into nostalgia for a time when both nations were whiter and more than homogeneous. In the case of the U.M., Klaas says in that location is an added layer of nostalgia for a fourth dimension when United kingdom was a global power and punched far above its weight.

"The idea that the U.M. will be contained and powerful once again is a very, very potent 1," says Klaas, an American, who is the writer of The Autocrat's Amateur: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy.

Equally both Trump and Johnson seek to transform their countries, they have as well targeted what they depict every bit the enemies of modify. Trump pledged to "drain the swamp," referring to the political course of legislators and lobbyists in Washington. Similarly, Johnson has targeted the Eurocrats in Brussels, whom he made a career of criticizing back in the 1990s, when he was a reporter in that location for the Telegraph.

Today, Johnson portrays the Eu as a well-intentioned peace try through economic integration that at present threatens to become a superstate.

"Information technology's not we who've changed, it's the EU that'south inverse out of all recognition," Johnson said when he launched the Brexit campaign in 2016. "To go along insisting that the EU is about economics is like saying the Italian mafia is interested in olive oil and real estate."

Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, the London think tank, says both men rode a pop backlash against globalization that was brewing in their respective countries. Industries lost jobs to lower-wage countries overseas, hollowing out communities in the American Midwest as well as in the north of England and Wales, areas that voted heavily for Trump or Brexit in 2016.

The 2008 global financial crisis besides had a big touch on. Although the U.Due south. economy recovered, many Americans never did, while in the U.K., some communities suffered through debilitating cuts in government services and programs.

"It took us xx years to go into this crisis of thwarting and dissatisfaction bubbling to the surface," Niblett says. "Information technology's going to take us xx years to get out of it."

How long Trump and Johnson volition lead their countries is another question. Trump heads into the 2020 election with a notwithstanding-strong economy and facing a divided Democratic Party. Johnson's first task in function will be to endeavor to unravel the Gordian knot that is Brexit, a claiming that has paralyzed British politics for much of the by three years and ended the careers of his two immediate predecessors.

But whatever these leaders' political fate, the populist forces that propelled Johnson and Trump to power are likely to endure.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/23/744076619/boris-johnson-britains-next-prime-minister-shares-similarities-with-trump

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