Was Boris Johnson's decision to NOT run for Prime Minister of Great Britain a cowardly move?

He never expected to win. He knows leaving the EU is cataclysmic. He knew this beforehand yet he lied and continued to lie. He was not happy with the result and his standing down is because he does not want to do this horrendous job of extricating us from EU

This is one of those situations where don’t kill the messenger. Those in charge created the climate of discontent that is near identical to the climate here in the US that gave rise to Trump. Both middle classes are sick and tired of bending over and grabbing their ankles while their governments breast feeds their tax and spend policies with no relief in sight. Boris did the job he set out to do and IMO is wise enough to say there needs to be someone smarter with HUGE negotiating skills that will be needed to mend the fences between Briton and the other 27 countries in the EU going forward.

I think Johnson is afraid that the growing Bregret is enough to scuttle his chances, and maybe even his entire career. This was a PR campaign that backfired on him.

@Cruiser “Those in charge created the climate of discontent.” You do realize that Johnson and Farage are both establishment politicians and not independent businessmen like Trump, right? It’s not really the same situation. But I do agree that Johnson and Farage helped created the climate of discontent, especially with all the lies they told as part of the “Leave” campaign. I just don’t get why you think that forgives anything. They aren’t just the messengers. They also wrote and signed the message. And now people are angry that a lot of their campaign was based on false promises.

@Irukandji I can only imagine the confusion and hostility towards Johnson now that after the vote has said thanks but no thanks to the PM job.

He’s not very popular among his Tory parliamentary colleagues. He was expected to the get the backing of Gove and other eurosceptic MPs to support his candidacy, but Gove decided he’ll stand himself and tell the world that Johnson would not be fit for PM.

Johnson stood down because his own party scuppered his ambitions. He likely wouldn’t have made it to the final ballot.

The way the selection process works in the Tory party, is that the two with the most nominations from fellow MPs then get to run head to head, and the party membership gets to vote and pick one of them.

Though the public generally think Johnson is some sort of genius who merely acts like a baffoon for effect—the reality is is that he’s actually as stupid as he acts, and his own parliamentary colleagues realise this.

@Cruiser Boris was a journalist before he went into politics. He is a talented writer. His pieces are as flamboyant and entertaining as you might expect from his public demeanour. He wrote for the Daily Telegraph, a very traditional newspaper. You can imagine his pieces were like a breath of fresh air through a stuffy institution.

Unfortunately he wrote, with both panache and vitriol, lies about Europe. He was the Brussels correspondent and he was the sole instigator of the stories about bureaucracy gone mad, how the eu are making straight bananas illegal, how we Brits can’t do this or that because Brussels won’t let us. He is single handedly responsible for starting the idea that bureaucrats in the EU were curbing British freedoms. He has admitted he made most of those stories up. HE MADE THEM UP. Then he bases his Leave campaign on those stories presenting them as facts. That’s his legacy in this omnishambles. The blame lies with him (and David Cameron for calling the referendum)

@Stinley I have to take your analysis of Boris for your word but then have to ask why are there so many who vehemntly further this Brexit movement?? I am reading of many scholarly and political types that are more determined and passioned than ever to see this exit through?

@Cruiser I do believe that there are scholarly and political types who support Brexit but this is not the norm. Here is an article about the demographic profile of Leave and Remain voters. You can see from the charts that the top supporters of Remain are far far far more highly educated than those in the Leave camp. The problem is that those in the Leave camp have had years of experts telling them what’s best for them and still they have crap lives. So this is a vote against politicians and experts. The Remain campaign strategy of saying ‘this is what’s best for you’ was doomed to failure because of a fundamental lack of understanding of this problem.

Boris Johnson is an over privileged arsehole like Donald Trump and Prince Charles.