The last thing they wanted was for Boris Johnson to be the real Boris Johnson. His serial dishonesty, his total untrustworthiness and sheer incompetence were best kept under wraps, at least until after he became the prime minister. The next prime minister needed to be a person of the very highest calibre. The more the EU distrusted a prime minister, the more likely it was to offer the UK everything we asked for. His need to be prime minister in exchange for MPs’ need to keep their jobs.

Source: The Guardian June 12, 2019 17:03 UTC