BREXIT

Boris Johnson and the Rise of Britain’s Trump

With the ascension of Boris Johnson, the final act in the Brexit saga may be close, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be bloody.

Until her resignation, Theresa May was the main villain for anti-Brexit protesters in London (photo by Alexander Andrews)

The denouement of the Brexit soap opera began with a woman standing alone, in tears, in the middle of a lonely London street. It will likely end the same way, except Theresa May will have more company. The streets of London with be awash with tears by then.

On television, the Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street looks deceptively accessible. Only a podium stands between the PM and the press and, by extension, the people. Behind her, the famous black door and the serene street scene. It all seems so out in the open, so calm, so egalitarian.

It isn’t, of course. Downing Street is the ultimate gated community, populated exclusively by those with their hands on the levers of power and off-limits to the public formally since 2005 and, in practice, for far longer.

Without passing cars or passersby to be concerned with, the best place for a Prime Ministerial photo op is in the middle of the road. Which is where Theresa May found herself when she announced - fittingly, in the final days of May - that she would be resigning over her inability to…