Rachel Johnson lashes ‘bullying, tasteless’ brother Boris

Rachel Johnson launches a withering attack on her ‘reprehensible’ brother Boris.

From left to right, Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley Johnson, sister Rachel Johnson, Boris and brother Jo Johnson. Picture: Getty images

Boris Johnson has come under withering fire from his own sister over his ‘bullying, reprehensible’ performance in the House of Commons on Thursday.

After suffering the humiliation of having his brother Jo resign from his cabinet over their differences on Brexit, the British PM endured a scathing attack from his sister Rachel who described him as a “bully.”

Ms Johnson, a journalist who stood for pro-European party Change UK in the European elections, told the BBC her brother was using the House of Commons as a “bully pulpit.”

During an incendiary debate in the Commons, Mr Johnson was attacked for using inflammatory language to describe Brexit which he was told was fuelling hatred against MPs and endangering their lives.

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Ms Johnson told the BBC’s World at One she loved her brother “very much” but the man she saw in the Commons was “not the brother I see at home.”

“Perhaps if you put a man in front of the dispatch box he becomes a completely different person. It becomes a sort of bully pulpit,” she said.

Ms Johnson was particularly scathing about her brother’s “reprehensible” language regarding the murder of Remainer MP Jo Cox days before the Brexit referendum. During toxic exchanges in the Commons, her brother had dismissed as “humbug” the pleas of a friend of Ms Cox to tone down his language or risk more lives.

.@RachelSJohnson attacks her brother for using "highly reprehensible" language when addressing the Commons and says the PM's remarks on the murdered MP, Jo Cox, were "particularly tasteless".#ThePledge pic.twitter.com/aWsK4Vt4Qp

— The Pledge (@ThePledge) September 26, 2019

“For those who are grieving a mother, an MP, a friend, to say the best way to honour her memory is to deliver the thing that she and her family campaigned against, which is Brexit… I think is a very tasteless way of referring to the memory of a murdered MP,” she told Sky News.

“Murdered by somebody who said Britain First, who is obviously of the far-Right tendency, which you could argue is being whipped up by this sort of language.

“My brother is using words like ‘surrender’ and ‘capitulation’ as if the people standing in the way of the blessed will of the people, as defined by the 17.4 million votes in 2016, should be hung, drawn, quartered, tarred, and feathered. I think that is highly reprehensible language to use.”

On the BBC, Ms Johnson suggested the PM’s bombastic public persona, and his choice of “tasteless” language was a “deliberate strategy” to demonstrate “strong man rhetoric” that would get his MPs “what they want” if they kept the faith with him.

She went further by speculating that people with a financial interest in no-deal were encouraging the Prime Minister. “People who have invested billions in shorting the pound or shorting the country in the expectation of a no-deal Brexit” could be driving his rhetoric, she said, but added: “We don’t know” .

I’m afraid to say this is rubbish. I said last night at a charity do that the family avoids the topic of Brexit especially at meals as we don’t want to gang up on the PM! https://t.co/IDXB1DrEN0

— Rachel Johnson (@RachelSJohnson) September 5, 2019

The attack from his sister, to whom he is known to be close, will be a serious blow to Mr Johnson, particularly as it comes after his brother’s resignation. Jo Johnson, who had voted Remain, quit his cabinet post earlier this month, saying he had been torn between family loyalty and the national interest.

At the time, Ms Johnson, who also voted Remain, tweeted that the family avoided the topic of Brexit, especially at meals “as we don’t want to gang up on the PM.”