Boris Johnson has denied mocking the public by questioning why they “so avidly craved” lockdown rules and obeyed them “like a religion”.
In an interview with Sky News’ Wilfred Frost, the former prime minister said he “totally rejects” he was expressing disdain for people who did as they were told by his government during the COVID pandemic.
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Mr Johnson made the comments in his memoir Unleashed, in a chapter about fighting the second wave of the virus in the autumn of 2020.
Referencing the “sheer complexity” of applying the tier system, he wrote: “The real question is why on earth the public so avidly craved these rules and why they were so willing to have their doings circumscribed in such rabbinical detail.”
He added that the rules acted “like a kind of religion, detailed rituals you just obeyed, Leviticus like in the hope of salvation”.
Asked if he was mocking people who followed the rules to the letter, or expressing disdain, Mr Johnson said: “I totally reject that.
“If you look at the way people historically have responded to pandemics… people want government to come in and lay down the law.”
He said the point he was making goes to the “heart of one of the difficulties” of trying to evaluate the success of lockdowns.
While a “large, honourable” group of people thought the rules went too far, “most people wanted regulation and they wanted to be told what to do in quite some detail”, he said.
He said people want these rules not because they don’t think they are capable of personal responsibility, but because they fear “that their neighbours aren’t”.
Johnson ‘of course sorry’ for Downing Street parties
Mr Johnson went on to say that he was “of course” sorry to people who were upset by the Downing Street Parties scandal, after writing in the memoir that he made a “mistake” in offering “grovelling” apologies for the row.
He told Sky News he was trying to “explain that I made many mistakes in the handling of that story”, and in issuing a “big blanket apology” it looked to the public “as though I was accepting every single allegation that was subsequently made”.
“I wasn’t, I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.
“Anybody who thinks that people in Number 10 were setting out to break the rules and have parties, I think is really out of their minds.”
The Met Police issued 126 fines over Downing Street rule breaking during the pandemic, while a damning report by then civil servant Sue Gray detailed a “serious failure of leadership” at the heart of Number 10.
It marked the beginning and the end of Mr Johnson’s administration, as while he narrowly survived a no confidence vote, his fragile support could not withstand another scandal by the time the Chris Pincher affair emerged.
Labour Sue Gray row ‘trivial’
Sue Gray Pic: PA
Mr Johnson said he no longer believes Ms Gray was the “model of political impartiality and probity” she was presented to him as when he instructed her to carry out the partygate inquiry, given she went on to work as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
But asked if there was a “wry smile” on his face when he saw that she resigned from that role on Sunday, following weeks of negative briefings, he said “no”, adding that the story is “trivial by comparison with the things that Labour is getting wrong”.
“From pointlessly handing over the Chagos Islands, pointlessly pushing up taxes, they are making huge, huge mistakes right now.”
Immigration going up after Brexit was ‘taking back control’
On the failures of his own premiership, Mr Johnson admitted that he operated in a presidential way and did not look after his backbench MPs enough.
On Brexit and whether it could have been done better, he didn’t answer the question directly but said his book explores how Britain can do things differently thanks to leaving the EU.
Asked about immigration going up after his points-based system was introduced, despite promises to bring it down, the former Tory leader said that was because “we were desperately short of labour”.
He said filling those gaps with migration was “right for this country” and, repeating his flagship slogan, said “that’s called taking back control”.
“In future we’ll know that we over-egged it for that year, will be able to go right down as I believe we’re now doing and have a much, much more restrictive approach.”