Boris Johnson’s resignation speech: what he said – and what he really meant

Our chief political commentator offers a translation of the former foreign secretary’s personal statement

What Boris Johnson said: Thank you Mr Speaker for granting me the opportunity first to pay tribute to the men and women of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who have done an outstanding job for the last two years.

What he really meant: They managed to put up with me as their boss.

What he said: None of this would have been possible without the support of my right honourable friend the prime minister. Everyone who has worked with her will recognise her courage and resilience.

What he meant: She had the courage to ignore the advice I gave her and she even survived my resignation, which would have been a devastating blow to a lesser person.

What he said: A vision that she set out with such clarity at Lancaster House last year: a country eager, as she said, not just to do a bold, ambitious and comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU, out of the customs union, out of the single market, but also to do new free trade deals around the world.

What he meant: Once we were hand in glove. Almost lovers. When she agreed with me she was magnificent.

What he said: But in the 18 months that have followed, it is as though a fog of self-doubt has descended.

What he meant: Now she knows me not. I guessed something was wrong when she avoided my glances. Without me, she looked lost.

What he said: Even the commentators liked the Lancaster House vision. And the markets liked it. As my right honourable friend the chancellor I’m sure observed, the pound soared.

What he meant: Even my bitterest rival, Philip Hammond, would have had to admit that Theresa and I made a great couple. I bet he was envious of my success.

What he said: We never actually turned that vision into a negotiating position in Brussels.

What he meant: That was because it was a lot of grand-sounding waffle, and every time the prime minister asked for detailed policy papers the line to Kabul or the Caribbean went all crackly.

What he said: Instead we dithered, we burned through our negotiating capital.

What he meant: She dithered, and I realised she had never really been into me. All the negotiating capital was in good order when I put it in the bank before I went off to attend to urgent business abroad.

What he said: Worst of all, we allowed the question of the Northern Irish border, which had hitherto been assumed on all sides to be readily soluble, to become so politically charged as to dominate the debate.

What he meant: Worst of all, people keep banging on about the stupid border just because they know I don’t have a solution to it.

What he said: My right honourable friend the chancellor was asked to identify the biggest single opportunity from Brexit. After some thought, he said regulatory innovation. Well, there may be some regulatory innovation post-Brexit, but it won’t be, alas, coming from the UK.

What he meant: You don’t really need a translation for this bit, do you? Hammond, eh? What does he know?

What he said: The result of accepting the EU rulebooks, and the fantastical Heath Robinson customs arrangement, is that we have much less scope to do free trade deals.

What he meant: Heath Robinson. He was a cartoonist. Jolly funny actually.

What he said: If we pretend otherwise, we continue to make the fatal mistake of underestimating the intelligence of the public: saying one thing to the EU about what we are doing and saying another to the electorate.

What he meant: A bit like saying we would lie down in front of the bulldozers to oppose a new runway and then trying to keep your job by leaving the country when it came to a decision.

What he said: Given that, in important ways, this is Bino, or Brino, or Brexit In Name Only, I am of course unable to support it, as I said in the cabinet session at Chequers.

What he meant: She says I supported it at Chequers. I mean, honestly, who do you want to believe? I almost resigned on the spot.

What he said: It is not too late to save Brexit. We have time in these negotiations. We have changed tack once and we can change again.

What he meant: It is not too late to save my leadership ambitions. My ratings have been on the slide for two years, but this is a really good speech. I’ve worked on it all morning. I can turn this round.

What he said: It is absolute nonsense to imagine, as I fear some of my colleagues do, that we can somehow afford to make a botched treaty now and then break and reset the bone later on.

What he meant: Michael Gove, you betrayed me once, I will not allow you to do that again, with your idea that what matters is to get out of the EU and sort out the problems later.

What he said: We have seen even in these talks how the supposedly provisional becomes eternal.

What he meant: I thought Theresa would be a temporary leader but she’s still there. Unbelievable.

What he said: Let us again aim explicitly for that glorious vision of Lancaster House, a strong, independent self-governing Britain that is open to the world, not the miserable permanent limbo of Chequers. Not the democratic disaster of ongoing harmonisation with no way out and no say for the UK.

What he meant: She has led me up the garden path for two years and I’ve only just realised it.