Johnson says Trump re-election would leave ‘global wokerati’ trembling
Boris Johnson said the prospect of a second Trump presidency had caused a ‘shriek’ from the ‘Western liberal intelligentsia’ – SAUL LOEB/AFP
Boris Johnson has backed Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, claiming that the “global wokerati” is “trembling violently” at the thought of a second term.
The former prime minister, who served concurrently with Mr Trump for 13 months between 2019 and 2021, said he believed he would continue US support for Ukraine and praised his “willingness to use force” and “sheer unpredictability”.
In an article for the Daily Mail, Mr Johnson said the prospect of a second Trump presidency had caused a “shriek” from the “Western liberal intelligentsia” and produced a “sheer, gibbering funk”.
“In the cocktail parties of Davos, I am told, the global wokerati have been trembling so violently that you could hear the ice tinkling in their negronis,” he wrote.
“In the senior common rooms of our universities, in the synod of the Church of England, in the Orwellian corridors of the BBC and among much of the UK establishment there has been a caterwauling orgy of nose-holding abhorrence.”
Mr Trump has a commanding lead in the Republican primary race, winning the Iowa caucuses by a landslide earlier this week and becoming odds-on favourite to repeat that victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
His main contender in the state, Nikki Haley, has launched a series of attacks on the former president, while he has falsely claimed she is not eligible to run for the White House because of her Indian heritage.
Although neither state has a large enough population to swing the nomination in either candidate’s favour, they are considered to have a disproportionate impact on the race because they vote first.
“Reasonable people can see that Trump is not, actually, a would-be dictator, and they have come to resent what look like legalistic ruses to axe him as a candidate,” wrote Mr Johnson. “The more frenzied the effort to cancel him, the stronger he becomes. The more bitterly his enemies wage lawfare against him, the more unstoppable he seems to be.”
Mr Johnson said he believed Mr Trump would continue US backing for Ukraine because of his supply of munitions to the country in 2019. Russian had invaded the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
“It was Donald Trump who gave the Ukrainians those Javelin anti-tank weapons, which … were so valuable to the Ukrainians in the battle for Kyiv; and it was at least partly thanks to that bold decision by Trump that the Ukrainians were able to stun the world and send Putin’s armies scuttling from the Ukrainian capital,” he added.
“So, whatever they now say about President Trump, I cannot believe that he will want to go down in history as the president who abandoned a country that he has already signally helped to keep free.”
Mr Trump has previously claimed he would end the war in Ukraine in “one day” if he was re-elected, in what has been interpreted as a call for a negotiated settlement that could see Russia permanently control some Ukrainian territory.
Mr Johnson said the West would be “stronger” under a Trump presidency because he would “demand that the Europeans pay more for their own defence”, bolstering Nato’s armoury.
“To all my high-minded anti-Trump friends I say, calm down, folks,” he said. “The more you froth and fret, the more determined his supporters will be – and a Trump victory will continue to migrate from possibility to likelihood to nailed-on certainty.
“We all need to grow up and get used to the prospect. If he does the right thing and backs the Ukrainians – and I believe he will – a Trump presidency can be a big win for the world.”
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