Boris Johnson’s outlandish claims not only diverge from attitudes within the very industries he claims to speak for (see Part 1), they also contrast markedly with the actions of his counterparts abroad, demonstrating yet again the Tories’ international isolation.

Frankfurt’s mayor Petra Roth, for example, has backed the German government’s new regulation of financial markets, is establishing an Institute of Banking Risk Management and Regulation in the city, and has argued that “the local tax burden plays a fairly small role in investors’ decisions about where to base their operations. Centrality, proximity to markets and connections to research, development and other parts of the supply chain are far more important. Most businesspeople value the quality of their city’s infrastructure”.

Meanwhile, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has turned down Johnson’s offer of an alliance against regulation and backed a plan to diversify the New York economy to reduce dependence on the financial sector. The Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, responded to the economic crisis with a powerful attack on “an anti-government philosophy […] that says that sensible financial regulation is bad for the economy and that progressive taxation equals class warfare.”

The Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has increased local taxes in a ‘solidarity budget’ to fund support for those hardest-hit by the economic crisis, increasing housing benefit and introducing micro-loans for those in difficulty. Zürich’s mayor Corine Mauch has backed a programme of “anticyclical microeconomic deficit spending according to Keynesian theory” and called for a more diversified city economy, less dependent on the financial sector. The Mayor of Shanghai, Han Zheng has said that the banks are “obsessed with financial innovation and leverage and they’ve put risk management on the backburner” and that China needs “to develop regulations and laws to put those ‘animal spirits’ on a leash so they play within the scope we’ve defined.”

That Johnson is isolated on these issues is notable. And, as it happens, at the same time as his international isolation increases, London’s mayor appears to be gaining a growing fan base in the ranks of UKIP. The party’s website announces that “Mayor Boris backs UKIP position on City”, quoting Johnson, praising his opposition to regulation, and reporting that the mayor has “decided to join the UKIP call for something to be done”. UKIP also backs Johnson’s opposition to the increased top rate of tax. Another UKIP article, entitled “BoJo on the money with City backing”, quotes leading UKIP MEP Nigel Farage as saying “Boris is right on the money” and echoes the mayor’s warnings of a loss of business to ‘Geneva or the Bahamas’. Farage concludes: “we back Boris to the hilt”.

Further questions arise as to the the impression Johnson gives to the international press. Handelsblatt and Financial Times Deutschland, both leading European financial dailies, have described the mayor as a ‘clown’. The German news magazine Focus has maintained that he “lacks the necessary gravity”, whilst Spain’s El Mundo has described him as ‘ridiculous’. El Periódico has reported that “Johnson is famous for coming out with reactionary and racist comments against homosexuals and Africans”.  In France L’Express has described him as a ‘flamboyantly chauvinist […] clown’ with a ‘bad reputation’, and in 2008 Berlin’s Tageszeitung described comments by Johnson as “islamophobic gibberish”.

Further afield, Newsweek has talked of Johnson’s “absence of discernible qualifications to run a great city”, whilst the mayor’s description of his £250,000 Telegraph contract as ‘chicken feed’ attracted ridicule from across the world (to take three examples, in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Singapore’s Straits Times). Der Spiegel described Johnson’s response to the financial crisis as ‘bluster’, doubted that the new taxes would have any significant effect and suggested that those prophesying an exodus from the City were “letting themselves be led by the nose by the bankers”.

It is surely not unreasonable to ask whether Johnson’s hysteria over the City, his reception in the international press, his isolation amongst other world mayors and his concomitant proximity to what David Cameron has described as the “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” of UKIP, together risk undermining London’s standing. That is of course debatable, but what is of much greater consequence is what this all tells us about today’s Tories: Johnson’s recent actions serve as yet another example of the Conservative Party’s growing scepticism towards and distance from the international political mainstream.

After all, the pattern of hysteria, isolation and ridicule does not just pertain to Johnson: it is true too of the party’s rejection of moderate European politics, its ‘cast iron’ promise on the Lisbon Treaty, the growing influence of right-wing evangelicals on Tory social policy and the party’s lonely, discredited and wavering insistence on sudden and deep spending cuts. Boris Johnson’s behaviour tells us much about the Tories’ ability to engage with the rest of the world and govern with reason and moderation, an ability, it seems, that is distinctly limited.

| Category Financial Services, Governance, London