Global Boris: How will Johnson do on the world stage as prime minister?

Analysis: His stint as foreign secretary was a failure, and insiders fear the same issues could come up again in No 10

Boris Johnson’s two-year stint as foreign secretary was rarely mentioned during the Conservative Party leadership election. He did not even refer to it during his campaign launch speech, preferring to focus on his eight years as London mayor.

One Tory insider said: “His record at the Foreign Office was his weak spot. But few of our MPs were prepared to criticise it. Most were more concerned about their own job prospects.”

When pressed, Johnson cited his role in assembling an impressive international coalition that expelled Russian diplomats after last year’s Salisbury attack. Whitehall sources tell a different story, insisting most credit is due to Sir Mark Sedwill, Theresa May’s national security adviser.

A sense of excitement at the Foreign Office at Johnson’s surprise appointment in 2016 did not last long. Today, officials recall a foreign secretary sometimes unwilling to master a brief, as was painfully exposed when he said Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been teaching journalism in Iran. His style did not fit well with diplomacy; jokes do not always translate well.

Johnson felt out of the Downing Street loop on Brexit, and told his advisers the UK should not be “needy” in its dealings with the EU. One European diplomat said: “There was a lack of trust among his opposite numbers. They found it hard to forget what he had said in the referendum campaign.” He went from being semi- to fully detached when he resigned a year ago over May’s Brexit strategy.

Johnson’s recent failure to fully support Sir Kim Darroch when Donald Trump attacked him over his unflattering missives from the UK’s Washington embassy appalled British diplomats and will make Boris’s relationship with them uneasy.

The affair might come to symbolise a pivot away from Europe and towards the United States. May never bonded with Trump. The chemistry with PM Johnson will be much better. “I like Boris Johnson, I always have,” the US president said last Friday. “He’s a different kind of guy. They say I’m a different kind of guy. I think we’ll have a very good relationship.”

As foreign secretary, Boris did not want to trumpet “the special relationship”. Again, it made the UK look “needy”. He will be keen to turn his personal bond with Trump into early progress towards a UK-US trade agreement, in part to put pressure on the EU to give ground on a Brexit deal. But hopes in the Boris camp for some “quick wins” may prove unrealistic. An agreement will probably take years. Some cabinet ministers believe Trump will lose interest if, as expected, the new UK government rules out lower food hygiene and animal welfare standards and access for US healthcare giants to the NHS market.

The Trump-Johnson relationship could also be tested by the crisis in the Gulf, which will be one of the incoming PM’s most urgent briefings on taking office. During the Tory leadership election, Boris stood by British, German and French efforts to keep the Iran nuclear deal alive. But some in Whitehall fear Trump might try to woo his new pal away from the Europeans, which UK officials would strongly oppose and would further strain relations with the EU at a highly sensitive time.

The Trump factor could also edge the UK closer to the US in its global power struggle with China, which would also worry the EU27. That could have an impact on decisions such as Huawei’s role in providing the UK’s 5G network.

While talking up security cooperation with the EU after Brexit, Johnson will trumpet the “five eyes” partnership with the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Indeed, we can expect a shift towards the Anglosphere. He will champion links with the Commonwealth, and try to translate them into trade deals. He will deploy his bouncy optimism as he seeks to turn Global Britain into more than a vacuous slogan. If he can sell the UK as well as he can sell himself, he will be successful.

Some foreign ministers judged that Johnson was not a serious man. His counterparts will now have to take him more seriously. Outside the US, he will not have a fat contacts book of personal allies to call upon. While a new UK PM will be received with respect, the office does not open as many doors as it once did; in an era of global alliances, some world leaders are bemused by the UK’s decision to leave the EU. While Eurosceptics welcome the fact that, like Trump, Boris is “a disrupter” – that would not make for smooth relations. He will have bridges to build.

As London mayor, Johnson prided himself on delegating to his deputies, being a chairman rather than chief executive. Yet some diplomats believe that will not work in Downing Street, saying that a prime minister must master several briefs at once in a way that Boris did not at the Foreign Office. And that’s before the unexpected crises they wake up to in the morning.