Boris pouring petrol on divided Britain, says Anglican primate

The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a rebuke to British PM Boris Johnson over the use of ‘inflammatory’ language.

Boris Johnson speaks with chief nurse Nicola Burns-Muir at Milton Keynes University Hospital. Picture: AFP

The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, has rebuked Boris Johnson, warning the British Prime Minister that the use of “inflammatory” language risks pouring “petrol” on Britain’s ­divisions over Brexit.

Justin Welby said Britain had become consumed by “an abusive and binary approach to political decisions” in which Brexit rivals treated their opponents as “my total enemy”.

The archbishop warned that social media meant it had become “extraordinarily dangerous to use careless comments” in a society that was “polarised and volatile”. He was “shocked” by Mr Johnson’s recent dismissal of warnings about extreme language encouraging death threats against politicians as “humbug”.

Two cabinet ministers revealed that at Thursday’s cabinet meeting, Mr Johnson launched an outspoken attack on Labour MPs refusing to back his plans for a general election. “There they are sitting on their arses, luxuriating in their salaries,” he is reported to have said.

Unveiling plans to hold a vote on an election each day from Monday to Thursday, Mr Johnson promised to implement a “battering-ram strategy” to force Labour’s hand.

“We will hammer them day after day after day,” he pledged.

Mr Johnson on Thursday offered MPs more time to debate his deal to leave the EU in return for a general election on December 12. MPs backed his deal with Brussels comfortably on Tuesday, before rejecting his timetable, a move that presages another delay.

The battering will start on Monday with a vote in the House of Commons on an election. Under the terms of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, Mr Johnson needs to secure the votes of 434 MPs, and is likely to need at least 70 Labour votes to succeed, a remote prospect.

If that fails, he and his team will try again. As Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s most senior aide, explained to ministerial advisers on Friday night: “We will have a vote on an election on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday.”

If that fails, Downing Street will launch what Mr Cummings called a three-month campaign to “show the country what we are doing to solve their problems now and what we could do if we weren’t being held hostage by the worst parliament in 400 years”.

In a fresh attack on MPs on Saturday, Mr Johnson accused parliament of “holding the country hostage” and claimed that ­Labour would “snarl us in further toxic debate”. His combative approach appeared to be working when a new Opinium poll put the Tories on 40 per cent, 16 points clear of Labour.

Dr Welby was speaking in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he has been highlighting the plight of people affected by an Ebola outbreak. He warned that extreme language in politics was fuelling hate crime.

He said his criticisms were not confined to Mr Johnson and his government but made clear he considered the Prime Minister partly to blame for the fact society had become “quite broken”.

Asked directly about Mr Johnson’s “humbug” comment when he was urged to moderate his language by an MP who had allegedly endured death threats, Dr Welby said: “I was shocked by that. It should never be dismissed in that way. Death threats are ­really serious and they need to be taken seriously. All sides need to say, ‘That is totally and utterly unacceptable’. ”

Dr Welby said political leaders could no longer behave in the same way as Winston Churchill, Mr Johnson’s hero.

“Churchill was well known for his somewhat inflammatory putdowns in parliament,” he said. “But this is happening at a time when we have social media, which amplifies things. In a time of deep uncertainty, a much smaller amount of petrol is a much more dangerous thing than it was in a time when people were secure. There is a great danger to doing it when we’re already in a very polarised and volatile situation.” Downing Street declined to comment.

The Sunday Times