Today Boris Johnson was selected leader of the Conservative Party and, we can assume by default, Prime Minister. Whilst the Conservative Party has never offered an acceptable candidate in its history, he represents the most severe option possible for our present. Johnson is truly the epitome of the crisis the British capitalist class is driving us all towards; a carefully constructed image – in this case of placidity and bumbling chaos – masks a man who ruthlessly pursues his career and the interests of capital above all, irrespective of the cost to the working class, both at home and abroad.

The fact Johnson is willing to circumvent parliament via prorogation, as well as preparing for martial law in Britain come no-deal Brexit – a destination he seems determined upon – should be of deep concern to the British and Irish public. His openly sexist, racist, homophobic and Islamophobic views only consolidate this and serve to legitimise the far-right. This should be rejected throughout every step of his premiership.

Simultaneously, we must remember the heart of the matter is not any one person; it is about the structure of parliamentary ‘democracy’ and whose interests it serves systemically. The choices we are offered are hollowed to meaninglessness. If Hunt had won, the brutality of his leadership would only be a different flavour of poison to Johnson’s. If, somehow, Labour won an election, we would still suffer under imperialist capitalism and its inherent cruelty, with its effects felt in Britain and the rest of the world. When we recognise Boris Johnson as the latest figurehead of an entire system, it becomes clear that what he represents cannot be resolved by parliamentary debates or elections, but by revolutionary opposition.

Boris is the symptom, Capitalism is the disease, Socialism is the cure!