ZEIT ONLINE Boris Johnson: What you want

ZEIT ONLINE Boris Johnson: What you want Nils Markwardt - 56 minutes ago The British Prime Minister likes to be self-ironic. Now he betrays his unscrupulousness again. This form of populism will prevail. Possibly Boris Johnson's last dance is on. If, after the revelations of the past few weeks, one could get the impression that the British Prime Minister had been to more illegal parties during the pandemic than Al Capone during Prohibition, another case of Johnson's lockdown laissez-faire recently came to the public. On the occasion of his birthday, he was celebrated by around 30 people in Downing Street's Cabinet Room on June 19, 2020. Even if a fellow party member tried to save him with an almost Shakespearean twist, after which Johnson was "ambushed" with a birthday cake, making the prime minister a tragic victim of Macbethian shortcrust pastry, it could be one misstep too much for BoJo have been. This will be decided not least by the eagerly awaited report by Sue Gray in Great Britain, in which the top official explains to what extent the British seat of government has recently become a pandemic party mile. But even if Johnson's days as prime minister are numbered, that need not mean the end of his political career. After all, he embodies a specific form of political populism that seems to fit very well into the age of social polarization. What the British journalist Simon Kuper recently wrote in his column in the Financial Times is true: while the diagnosis of a social divide actually applies to the USA, it cannot be so easily transferred to (Western) Europe. On the one hand, the government and party systems on the Old Continent are usually much more geared towards compromise and mediation, and on the other hand, there is also a strong public broadcasting system in most countries, which at least in principle ensures a common media reality. If Boris Johnson has often been apostrophized as the European Trump, this seems correct in that he has adapted the former US President's method to the conditions here: The British prime minister has a similarly virtuosic relationship to the truth and has a comparable lack of scruples when whipping up and whipping up their own clientele. But in contrast to Trump, who always staged himself upwards with his neo-monarchical appearances, Johnson's self-portrayal always aimed downwards. The aesthetically well-calculated chaos that surrounds him, thanks to his tousled hairstyle, crooked clothes and chummy charisma, makes many forget that the former Eton pupil and Oxford student is deeply rooted in that part of the British upper class in which other social classes are primarily seen as service personnel occur. Habitual hush-hush But precisely because European societies are not yet as polarized politically as American societies, Boris Johnson reveals that populist principle to which the future in Europe may belong: on the one hand, a good portion of Trumpist unscrupulousness in order to give his own people enough Bringing pride and prejudice into position, on the other hand a well-staged measure of clumsy intimacy and self-mockery, which generates so much sympathy (and votes) in the post-political part of the middle-class that it is enough for an election victory. This seemingly paradoxical mix of right-wing agitators and party clowns, which Jörg Haider once began to cultivate in Europe, will take at least long enough for the polarization to be pushed far enough for a self-ironic wink to become superfluous. This is exactly what Johnson has been working on recently, announcing his plans to smash the BBC's previous funding model. Regardless of whether Johnson survives this scandal or has to leave soon, it would be surprising if he didn't remain in the political arena in some form. Especially since after a few self-deprecating jokes about the cake number, many would probably forgive him. Above all, however, it is to be feared that the principle embodied by Boris Johnson, this mixture of aggressive agenda and habitual shyness, will set a populist school. The party ain't over yet.