Boris Johnson is to surrender his American citizenship, The Sunday Times tells us, “to make it clear that his loyalty was to Britain rather than the country of his birth”. We are to believe that this is fantastic for the citizens of Great Britain as it will make it easier for Johnson to contest the leadership of the Tory party, should it lose the next election.
The Sunday Times seems to think that this is glorious news for us mere mortals. I have no doubt that Boris believes we should be all very grateful for his great renunciation of his US passport.
It is such a huge sacrifice on his part as it means he can no longer become President of the US, lucky, lucky Yanks. Mind you, they are still staring down the barrel of a gun in the form of Hillary Clinton, so I guess there is a limit to the celebrations.
Boris tells us that it will be a challenge to give up the passport. “It is a laborious business. They don’t make it easy for you.” Gosh – pass me the Kleenex and the world’s smallest violin. Only on Planet Boris does this constitute a problem – while the rest of us are figuring out ways to pay the mortgage. A small piece of advice to Boris: if you ever do run for PM (heaven help us) do not name ‘giving up American citizenship’ as your greatest challenge. I doubt this will do much to lessen the image of the Tories being out of touch Toffs.
Many of our readers will know that as an old-fashioned social conservative I am not a signed up member of the Boris Johnson fan club. The fact that he is making this huge sacrifice will certainly not change my mind.
