Boris is leaving the building, so why don’t I feel happy?
By Claire Wilsher
So Boris is going. The yellow mop is leaving the building, leaving a steaming trail of un-mopped shit behind him. This is the man who has broken national services, outsourced people fleeing conflict to processing centres in Rwanda, and presided over sex scandal after sex-scandal. He has proven that politics is not safe for women and, more recently, not safe for men either.
More personally, he has ruled a government whose policies on care homes allowed my grandmother to die. So why don’t I feel happy that he’s out of here?
I thought that when Boris left Downing Street I might feel elated, or somehow vindicated that one who has destroyed so much was finally being destroyed. Yet, I feel the opposite. Not even really deflated; I just feel nothing. This doesn’t feel like a win.
My outrage and pain have affected nothing; he has been able to walk away from each ‘scandal’ unscathed. The gravity of the things that man has done have even been belittled by the very label we give them. We call them ‘scandals’ as if they are something to be gossiped about: something juicy to get your teeth into. When, in reality, each incident is a personal tragedy for someone else. Each ‘scandal’ has left someone chewed up and spat out carelessly by a government who work only for themselves.
For all their resignations and all their sudden distance, the cabinet’s recent actions are not a sign of true outrage, but indicators of the fact that they do not want to be dragged down alongside their leader. They do not want to lose their place on the ladder. Theirs is a game woven out of people’s lives. The winnings: social standing and career gains. Meanwhile the losses fall solely on outsiders, people who have unwillingly gambled it all: lives, livelihoods, social structure, and support.
So yes, Boris is gone. But he leaves behind a legacy that the Tories will package up as solely Boris’ baggage. They’ll wrap his atrocities with a pandemic-coloured ribbon and file it away carefully under ‘a difficult time’. And, of course, those doing the packaging will be the very same people who sat in the cabinet and pushed for each change that they now deem a disgrace.
Rather than relief I’m plagued by a question: Who will we get next? If we’re “lucky” it’ll be someone even more slouching and grotesque than his predecessor, like Jacob Rees Mogg. At least then we stand a chance of their truly awful colours shining through.
Worse yet, we could be presented with someone more palatable than Johnson. Someone who will take the helm of the Tory ship, set so confidently for self-destruction, and shift gear toward safety. If the party can gain enough distance from Johnson, they’ll return to the straight and narrow ‘safe hands’ narrative that has always fuelled the right-wing. The battered ship will be repainted as the ‘safe option’ - just in time for a general election.
Maybe that’s it: Boris is gone, but I’m worried about how quickly the public will revert to the ‘did the best he could’ narrative. How quickly will we collectively forget?
Whatever happens, life in the UK won’t be plain sailing from here. Sadly Boris won’t be packing up our societal issues to take with him when he leaves. No, he’ll just skip away joyfully - away from the burden of finding a resolution for the horrors he’s responsible for. As for his successor, I’ll be praying for someone who, at the very least, doesn’t treat the British public with complete contempt… but I won’t be holding my breath.
Claire is a primary school teacher in Bristol and when she’s not getting bullied by 7 year olds she like long walks on the sand and dismantling capitalism.
Read more of her writing on her personal blog or in another political piece about the dangers of Liz Truss’ proposed reforms.
Photo by Jannes Van den wouwer on Unsplash
