When Boris Johnson kicked off the Vote Leave campaign on May 11, 2016, one Remain supporter remarked darkly: “I just fear that one day we’ll have Boris as Prime Minister and Donald Trump as President – it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
At the time it sounded unimaginable, a particularly pessimistic prediction: Trump was lagging behind Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House and Johnson was a comedy figure and backbench MP who, deep down, expected the Out campaign to lose the Brexit referendum.
Yet on Wednesday afternoon – 1,170 days since that woman’s prophecy on Lemon Quay in Truro, Cornwall – her doomsday forecast is about to happen.
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In No10, crazy-haired Johnson will take his seat behind the Prime Minister’s desk once occupied by titans such as Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson and David Lloyd George.
Some 3,500 miles across the Atlantic, another crazy-haired right-wing politician sits behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office of the White House’s West Wing – a nerve centre once occupied by figures such as Franklin D Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F Kennedy.
Johnson and Trump’s personal connection will come under the microscope perhaps more than any President and PM in recent years.
Their handling of the “special relationship” between the UK and US could prove crucial for Britain’s fortunes over the next few tumultuous months.
Churchill coined the phrase in 1946 but never in the recent history of transatlantic relations have the countries’ leaders been more unpredictable and volatile – just at the time when issues such as Iran, climate change and post-Brexit trade deals require cool, analytical minds rather than crowd-pleasing, self-obsessed hotheads.
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Johnson is tipped to jet to Washington DC for an audience with Trump within weeks of entering Downing Street.
But the former Foreign Secretary could face awkward questions over why he once accused Trump – then a presidential candidate – of “stupefying ignorance” and being “unfit to hold the office of president of the United States”.
Clearly Johnson, speaking in 2015, either did not believe he would become PM or Trump would win the White House – or both.
Yet the narcissistic duo have spoken warmly of each other since then – setting the stage for the latest love-in across the ocean.
During his Tory leadership campaign, Johnson claimed Trump has “many, many good qualities”, had got the US economy “motoring” and was “having results”.
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He added: “We should pay tribute to that.”
Trump was gushing in his praise for Johnson just before visiting Britain last summer.
The former London Mayor was “a very talented guy” for whom he had “a lot of respect”, claimed the President in July 2018.
“I am just saying I think he would be a great Prime Minister. I think he’s got what it takes,” he added, in a fresh blow for humiliated Theresa May .
Eleven months later, on his state visit to London, Trump said Johnson would make an “excellent” Conservative leader, beaming: “I think Boris would do a very good job.”
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Both became TV stars before they were well known through politics: Johnson appeared on Have I Got News For You and Trump on The Apprentice.
Both have been accused of racism while playing to their fan base – Johnson for controversial columns in the Daily Telegraph which referred to black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”; Trump for saying four non-white US politicians should “go home” – despite three being born in the US and the other arriving in American as a child refugee.
Both have insulted minorities to curry favour and generate laughs among their devoted supporters: Johnson by referring to gay men as “bum boys”; Trump by physically mocking and doing a sick impression of a disabled journalist.
Both favour rallies in front of adoring fans rather than public scrutiny: Johnson loved being the centre of attention amid the adulation of the Vote Leave campaign, where Brexiteers flocked to his cause at events across the land as he pressed the case for quitting the EU; Trump still holds campaign-style showpieces where cheering supporters chant his slogans as he rails against immigrants, invented injustices and the Democrats.
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Both are seen as unfaithful lotharios currently with women 24 years their junior: Johnson, 55, is in the process of divorcing wife number two, has been accused of a string of extra-marital affairs, and questions remain over what role, if any, his current girlfriend – 31-year-old Tory former PR chief Carrie Symonds – will play in No10.
Trump, 73, is wed to wife number three, 49-year-old Melania, has bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy” and faced a string of sex assault and harassment allegations, which he denies.
Yet these two men – who inspire fierce, raging loyalty among their hard-core supporters and incomprehension, disgust and revulsion among their critics – tomorrow find themselves the custodians of the “special relationship”, holding Britain’s immediate destiny in their hands.
