If as anticipated the Brexit party wins the European elections well ahead of the Conservatives then I expect the discussion will move towards who will be best placed to win the support of the Brexit Party’s voters and many will say Boris Johnson but that will be a mistake, here’s why.

Nigel Farage would ruthlessly exploit the past comments of Boris, for example the pre referendum comments by Boris Johnson about ‘support[ing] a second referendum on Britain’s relationship with the EU even if the UK voted to leave.’

Then there’s Boris Johnson’s support for an amnesty for illegal immigrants which someone like Nigel Farage and his vast history of inflammatory rhetoric on immigration would ruthlessly exploit to portray Boris Johnson as another member of the liberal metropolitan elite.

Then there’s the comments in the video atop this thread about switchers to UKIP are the kind of people who have sex with vacuum cleaners. Whether fair or unfair that these defectors to Farage’s party are the sort of people who have sex with vacuum cleaners it has the potential to cause grief in the way David Cameron’s prescient comment about UKIP members being “a bunch of fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists” did.

In mitigation of Boris Johnson when he made these comments it was days after Mark Reckless defected from the Conservatives to UKIP at the start of the 2014 Conservative party conference.

Many Conservatives were very angry at Reckless, the normally mild mannered David Cameron said some very uncomplimentary things about Mark Reckless, another Tory MP said Mark Reckless is ‘a f**king c**t who deserves a hot poker up his arse’, my own views on the treachery of Mark Reckless were unfit to publish on a family friendly website like politicalbetting.

But the argument about Boris Johnson as Conservative leader being the panacea to getting back Conservative to Brexit party switchers doesn’t survive slight scrutiny, Nigel Farage will ensure that, Boris Johnson’s past gives Farage so much material.

TSE