Boris Johnson has come out as an Outer. After months of indecision and ‘a huge amount of heartache’, Johnson decided to stab Cameron in the front and align himself with the likes of Nigel Farage and George Galloway to vote ‘no’ to Europe. As David Cameron and others tell us, Outers such as Farage and Galloway should not be confused with more ‘respected’ Brexit politicians such as Michael Gove, and Johnson has promised not to appear with them on a public stage. And yet, what Johnson shares with Farage and Galloway is his performative value as a celebrity politician who according to the BBC and others, is ‘political box office’ and could thus sway undecided voters his way. Elsewhere, I have applied the theme of flirtation as a mode of communication to politics and the practice of identifying with different political positions. Today, political flirtation applies equally to politicians and voters within the contemporary scene of promotional party politics. Boris Johnson’s flirtation with voters on the theme of Europe provides an example of this phenomenon and his seemingly spontaneous, authentic un-spun qualities are key to his ability to connect with the public.
Johnson has a penchant for making announcements to large numbers of journalists at once – often outside on London pavements. It was therefore unsurprising that he chose to make the most of his big reveal by announcing his Brexit decision on Sunday in front of a sea of cameras on a pavement outside his Islington house. Whilst he is often clad for the cameras in cycling gear, trademark beanie and wild hairdo, Johnson marked the gravitas of the occasion by sporting a new haircut and sober suit and tie, signalling perhaps, his wish to be taken more seriously as a statesman and politician.
We learnt more about his ‘agonisingly difficult’ choice to join the Brexit campaign in his Telegraph column the next day. In that column, he combined discourses of nation and empire with that of a kind of boys-own style of masculinity – with some Winston Churchill references thrown in, to convey the threat posed by the ‘European powers’ to the border shores of Britain. Like helpless infants in an Edwardian nursery, he conjures up a picture of the threat of an all-engulfing Brussels ‘Nanny’ who has lulled us into some kind of passive state of acquiescence and he makes a plea for the British to ‘be brave’, to wake up out of their slumber and imagine ‘an independent future’.
Following the Telegraph publication of his Brexit call to arms, there was a mixed reaction. On the one hand, sections of the tabloid press were thrilled that the ‘blonde bombshell’ had managed to upset the plans of Cameron. Such excitement was accompanied by ‘comical’ images of Johnson and Gove dressed as Dad’s Armycharacters shooting at the Cameron – mocked up as the German soldier from WW2. However, this jingoistic wave of pro-‘Bojo’ celebration was also matched also by a backlash against him from those who represented him as opportunistic and self-serving in his last minute swerve towards Brexit. As some pointed out, in the preceding months, Johnson had said that he was definitely not ‘an outer’ and that his instincts were to stay inside Europe.
Yet to those of us who have followed Johnson’s career over the years, it comes as no surprise that he should have changed his mind. Johnson’s political identity is slippery; as joker and skilled political orator he seems to enjoy cocking a snook at the establishment whilst at the same time, as a white, middle class, Oxbridge educated member of the Conservative Party, he also symbolises all that the establishment is held up to be. With one eye on the banking service sector and one on the electorate, he has managed the potential contradictions of his political position by adopting a persona associated with Englishness and amateurism. In this way, he harks back to an earlier era of deference whilst simultaneously appearing to refuse the patriarchal structures of authority that shaped it. With his teddy bear looks and public gaffes that make people laugh, Johnson is a seductive figure. It is as if he often appears to represent a cuddly toy with whom the electorate can play, thereby undercutting the notions of governance that his roles as London Mayor and Member of Parliament represent.
Like his fellow Outers – Farage and Galloway (and over the waters, Donald Trump), Johnson’s apparent lack of deference to the establishment sits well with an electorate who are increasingly cynical and disenchanted with politics and the affective dimensions of his appeal should not be underestimated. It is interesting to explore the emotions that get stirred up when identifying with politicians in such contexts who may be idealised and loathed in equal measure. In an age of precarity, feelings of helplessness and anger may also give rise to an envy of politicians and the power and prestige that they seem to represent. Yet Johnson manages to ward off any potential envy of his position as a wealthy politician and journalist by representing himself as an un-impinging figure that people can enjoy.
It is arguably this very traditional English trait of refusing to commit and take things too seriously which taps into Johnson’s populist appeal as a flirtatious, ‘post-ideological’ politician, who plays down traditional party loyalty and appeals across cross party lines within the South of England in particular. Despite his Thatcherite love of the free-market, Johnson has constructed a persona that fits more with that of a benign, eccentric character straight out of the comic pages of The Dandy. As a media professional surrounded by other media professionals, he is skilled at using contemporary methods of political communication to associate himself with a particular fantasy of Britain as ‘a truly great country’ as being located within an earlier, less complicated and secure pre-globalised age of flag-waving street parties, nannies and Dad’s Army.
A preoccupation with nostalgia is widespread in popular culture and despite the attempt to link it to a new and more modern outward looking future, the ‘out of Europe’ campaign also uses images of nostalgia and nation to convey its message. At a wider level, this practice can be read as a defence against the losses and uncertainties of late modernity. The desire to look back, or at least to turn away from the contemporary malaise and to identify instead with the retro, personality-driven politics of Johnson, can be seen in that broader psychosocial context, alongside the more specific features of the contemporary socio-cultural and political moment framed by fears of migration and the experience of austerity.
Candida Yates is Professor of Culture and Communication in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University. Her research background is in Psychosocial Studies and its application to media, politics, emotion and popular culture. She is Director (with Caroline Bainbridge, University of Roehampton) of the AHRC Media and Inner World research network (MiW), and has published widely on the psycho-cultural dynamics of politics, emotion, gender and popular culture. Recent publications include: The Play of Political Culture, Emotion and Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Media and the Inner World: Psycho-Cultural Approaches to Emotion, Media and Popular Culture (co-ed, with Caroline Bainbridge, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). She tweets @Candide3.
Image: Back Boris 2012 Campaign CC BY-NC-ND
