So there you have it.
The prime minister came to Northern Ireland and left nearly everyone united against him - except, it seems, the forlorn chairman of the NI Conservative Party. The local Tories by all accounts gave Mr Johnson a rougher time than Sinn Féin.
The vainglorious prime minister loves the classics. He would have liked to have declared, Caesar-like: “Veni, vidi, vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered). Unfortunately, in the words of Plutarch, it was more akin to “Vox et praetera nihil” - a voice and nothing more.
Mr Johnson appears as he is. Tone deaf and totally self-absorbed. He orbits his own planet. Planet Johnson is rarified space. His cabinet is like a political version of the Stepford Wives - servile, submissive and spineless.
In some ways, we should be grateful for having Brandon Lewis as secretary of state. He is at best polite and at worst plodding. Imagine if we had Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary famed for speaking before thinking. Or Dominic Raab, who comes across as a poodle which thinks it’s a Rottweiler.
The problem for Boris Johnson is that his government lacks intellectual weight. Certainly with regard to Northern Ireland, Johnson and his cronies lack the sensitivity, nous and gravitas to steer through the minefields of a post conflict society.
They should be working in partnership with their closest neighbour and co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement - the Irish government - but instead they are being drawn to the beat of the tribal drums of those who are perennially opposed to the Belfast Agreement.
If the British government unilaterally tampers with the NI Protocol it will walk straight into diplomatic quicksand with the EU and the USA.
Solutions to the technical problems affecting the NI Protocol exist but the Tory government is not seeking to address them through the channels established for that purpose. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, appears to have political aspirations way above her pay grade but with cabinet colleagues who resemble contestants for the game show ‘Apocalypse Wow’, Truss could yet hope to succeed Johnson, if the latter falls from grace.
Northern Ireland unionists have always been at heart separatists. Their form of Britishness is not found in other parts of the UK and is politically alien to most British voters.
Their professed allegiance is to the crown rather than any British government and therein lies a serious weakness. It’s the government of the day which makes the big decisions, not the Royal Family. Political unionists undermine their own case for closer integration with Britain by blocking equality legislation. Between 2011-16, they used their veto via the petition of concern 86 times and mainly to block social and equality legislation.
Despite his public utterances (all of which on every subject have to be taken with a pinch of salt), there is little sign Boris Johnson has any real affinity with Northern Ireland.
During discussions over Brexit, his one time senior adviser Dominic Cummings was reported as saying: “I don’t care if NI falls into the f***ing sea”. Johnson’s own father went much further with derogatory remarks about the Irish problem for which he later had to apologise.
Johnson needs the NI Protocol as a toxic totem for now. The general public are tired of his shenanigans and lies but the prime minister recognises that a bit of EU bashing goes down well within the English nationalist base of his core support.
He’s likely to be tempted to go the country in 2023 before Labour in the north of England and the Lib-Dems in the south get any more traction. His priorities are not the interests of unionists in Northern Ireland, they are just convenient pillion riders until he no longer needs them.
The words ‘Quis Separabit’ (who will separate us) often appears on loyalist flags and murals. Political unionists could answer that question by looking in the mirror because they will see themselves and this PM hovering over their shoulders.
