Boris Trump

Trump has been elected new prime minister of Britain. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. Only Americans can choose a clown as their supreme leader, but now the sober Brits have accomplished it too. What has happened? Has the British national character finally made the transition and become indistinguishable from its overgrown offspring across the Atlantic? Well, an Americanization has clearly taken place, but not in the people; it’s the system that’s suddenly changed.

The dignified Westminster model used to be a guarantee against wild firebrands who tried to seduce the people with their entertaining demagoguery. Some of them did get elected to parliament, but they could never reach the top because they would not be chosen among their peers. In Britain the leader of the country was picked by the members of parliament. He sprang from their midst, but the procedure was fully democratic since they were already elected by the people.

But now that has changed. The boss is now chosen separately and in the American fashion he is independent of the national assembly. He may therefore be opposed to the will of those who represent the will of the people. In America that can somehow be justified since both Congress and the president are separately elected by the same people and if they get a Trump, it’s their own doing.  The US president is an odd individual always partly opposed to the assembly, but the UK prime minister was always united with the assembly. He was, until the election of the party leaders was Americanized. Now any odd duck can appear, and so did Donald Johnson.

The United Kingdom is not a parliamentary democracy anymore. It now only has half a parliament and the other half consists of a president who is not even elected by the people but by a mere 160 000 party members. What happens when they get a veto against the people? Who do you get? Well, you know his name.