Boris Johnson and the re-writing history boys

LONDON — Sorry seems to be the hardest word for Boris Johnson and his ministers. When the U.K. prime minister and his top team do a screeching u-turn they rarely own up to their course correction, instead trying to style it out. POLITICO brings you the greatest hits from Britain’s re-writing history boys.

Pilot piffle

Downing Street swiftly hit the reverse button on Sunday morning amid a backlash over the announcement Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak would not have to self-isolate and could carry on working as normal. That was despite the pair coming into contact with Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who tested positive for the virus over the weekend.

Both, it emerged, had miraculously been selected for a pilot scheme exempting them from the rules that have been confining hundreds of thousands of Brits to their homes.

At 8 a.m. on July 18: A press release quoted a No. 10 spokesperson who said: “The prime minister and chancellor have been contacted by NHS Test and Trace as contacts of someone who has tested positive for COVID. They will be participating in the daily contact testing pilot to allow them to continue to work from Downing Street.”

By 3.19 p.m. on July 18: The prime minister had ditched that plan, and released a video on Twitter claiming “we did look briefly at the idea of us taking part in the pilot scheme,” which allows people to test daily and carry on working. “I think it’s far more important that everybody sticks to the same rules and that’s why I’m going to be self-isolating until Monday, July 26,” he added. Problem solved!

Unmasked

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick caused quite a stir after saying he would ditch his mask when legally allowed to do so earlier this month.

On July 4: Asked directly if he would be abandoning his face-covering, if permitted, Jenrick told Sky’s Trevor Phillips: “I will. I don’t particularly want to wear a mask. I don’t think a lot of people enjoy doing it.”

By July 18: As coronavirus cases started to spiral, and the government put out fresh guidance encouraging people to, in fact, carry on wearing face coverings in some settings, Jenrick had another go.

The Cabinet minister was asked by the BBC’s Andrew Marr if he was being selfish after saying he would take his mask off at the first possible opportunity.

“No, I didn’t say that, Andrew,” he insisted. “I was asked two weeks ago on another show like yours whether I wanted to wear a mask and I said I don’t particularly want to, like millions of other people across the country. But I’ll be continuing to carry a mask and I’ll wear it in crowded places.”

Resignation re-cast

Johnson’s part in former Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s explosive resignation from government has itself become a matter of controversy. Hancock admitted breaching social distancing guidelines when pictures emerged of him kissing a non-executive director at the Department of Health. He resigned on a Saturday — but not before the prime minister had seen fit to publicly back him.

On Friday, June 25: At the daily briefing for political journalists on the day the pictures were published by the Sun newspaper, Johnson’s spokesman said: “The prime minister has accepted his [Hancock’s] apology and considers the matter closed.”

By Monday, June 28, Johnson was telling journalists: “I read the story on Friday and we’ve got a new health secretary in post on Saturday, and I think that’s about the right pace to proceed in a pandemic.”

Border backtrack

Johnson has managed plenty of revision on the Northern Ireland protocol, the key post-Brexit agreement with the EU that seeks to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

On November 24, 2018, Johnson told the DUP conference of Theresa May’s “Irish backstop” plan: “We would be damaging the fabric of the union with regulatory checks and even customs controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

By December 24, 2020, and after signing the Brexit trade agreement, Johnson had changed his tune: “There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade,” he said of the deal. “Instead there will be a giant free trade zone of which we will at once be a member and at the same time be able to do our own free trade deals as one U.K., whole and entire, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, together.”

By June 12, 2021, Johnson, locked in a fight with Brussels over the details, told reporters at the G7 meeting of finance ministers: “I think the protocol can work if it’s sensibly applied but at the moment it’s not just a question of chilled meats or sausages, there are all kinds of impediments being constructed, and we need to sort it out.”

COVID chronicles

With a public inquiry into the U.K. government’s response to the pandemic looming, there have been big questions over the pace at which Johnson ordered Britain’s first national lockdown. The key protagonists have already been working out their spin.

The opposition Labour Party pounced on an apparent discrepancy over when exactly the order for the first lockdown came. The U.K.’s chief scientific officer said government had been told on either March 16 or 18 that the “remainder of the measures should be introduced as soon as possible.” Fact-checking gurus Full Fact weighed in.

On March 23, 2020: Johnson said in a televised address: “I must give the British people a very simple instruction – you must stay at home.”

Yet Hancock was telling MPs by July 16, 2020: “Of course, March 16, is the day I came to this House and said all unnecessary social contact should cease. That is precisely when the lockdown was started.”