Boris Johnson: 'Gender self-ID was a fatal error' by Nicola Sturgeon

Mr Johnson was interviewed by the Scotsman at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall where he also claimed Nigel Farage would never be prime minister.

The ex-Conservative politician further refused to completely rule out running as prime minister again in the future.

When it was put to Mr Johnson there was “no love lost” between he and Ms Sturgeon, with whom he had a difficult political relationship, he said: “First of all, I want to challenge you on that. I always got on quite well personally with [Ms Sturgeon].

“She not only read my book, she gave it a jolly nice review in the New Statesman. Plus, thanks to Nicola the union is safe for a long time.

“The dogs barked, the caravan moved on.”

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Mr Johnson went on to say that during Covid, Ms Sturgeon had been “very politically adroit” and “she was always totally running rings around me”.

“So we'd have these Cobra meetings or cabinet sessions,” he said. “We would agree something and we would agree that I would go out and address the nation on the BBC.

“I'd still be stumbling through from the underground meeting room to my office to get my statement ready. And as I’d pass, I'd see the TV screen that was Nicola already claiming credit for whatever stringent measure had been applied, saying it wasn't tough enough.”

Describing her as “brilliant” at stealing his thunder, Mr Johnson said: “And she made it look as though the UK government was being unfeeling and less concerned about health, which wasn’t true.”

The former PM said that when he was Mayor of London, he would “do the same thing”, describing going to Cobra meetings with Gordon Brown when he was prime minister and announcing the outcome of the discussions before the government had the chance.

“I know it cheesed off central government,” he added, “But that was the breaks.”

On gender self-ID, Mr Johnson said the public were ahead of politicians in their concerns on the issues. He said: “People were way ahead of the elites, way ahead of the politicians, in seeing that this is all mumbo-jumbo.”

Asked if Ms Sturgeon had made a fatal error by backing gender recognition reform legislation, which was quashed by the UK government, Mr Johnson said: “My impression is she totally muffed it.”

He said Alister Jack, then Scottish secretary, had been “ahead of the political consensus at the time” in bringing a section 35 order that ended the Gender Recognition Reform Act.

Asked whether he preferred being Mayor to being Prime Minister, Mr Johnson said he “loved both jobs”. But he said he enjoyed the fact that as London Mayor he was essentially un-sackable.

He said: “I was elected twice, by quite decent margins, and there was no way they could get rid of me. I mean, literally none. There was nothing in the statute. And I had the most appalling scandals.”

Being prime minister, he said, was more difficult because he had made so many enemies during his time as a journalist and by backing Brexit.

On Ukraine, Mr Johnson said the UK should be leading the Western response “co-ordinating military support, diplomatic support and economic pressure on [Vladimir] Putin”.

He said it was “vomit inducing” to watch the US President Donald Trump treat Mr Putin “as though he’s somehow morally equivalent to [Ukraine leader Volodymyr] Zelensky”, but stressed the tactic was necessary.

Meanwhile, on whether there would ever be a Palestinian state, Mr Johnson said: “The sensible British position is, there's got to be a two-state solution.”

However, he added: “Personally, I wouldn't recognise a Palestinian state. The answer has got to be some sort of Gulf Emirate type solution, which is not, I'm afraid, going to be democratic.”

Mr Johnson said Brexit had ensured Britain “took back control” and so should be implementing tough restrictions on its borders. The EU migrants who arrived during the so-called Boriswave of 2020 are now becoming eligible to apply for indefinite leave to remain.

“Who decides that?” Mr Johnson said. “Not the European Court of Justice, not European law. UK authorities can decide and we can decide, as a sovereign, independent country, how many legal immigrants we have.”

He also called for a re-instatement of the failed Rwanda plan. The Conservative policy would have seen asylum seekers deported to detention centres in Rwanda and, if there claims were successful, settled there. No asylum seekers were deported and the scheme was dropped by Labour in 2024.

Asked if Reform UK’s Nigel Farage was a leader or an opportunist, Mr Johnson said he saw an “opportunity to shove him off in due course”.

Mr Johnson was adamant the Conservatives should not work with Reform UK.

Using colourful language, he said: “We will not appeal to the electorate by thinking that we can somehow transfuse by some Frankenstein-style, mammary-gland style operation, we will not make ourselves bigger, better, more beautiful by having some sort of surgical procedure involving a Reform transplant.

“It will not work. One part of the body will reject the other.” Mr Johnson said Mr Farage would not be prime minister.

On Partygate, he said the allegations were “stunted up” and “exaggerated” by “people who didn’t wish me particularly well, and people ran with it”.

Despite the fact the Downing Street parties were well documented, Mr Johnson added: “The idea that I, or any of my senior team, were partying, having social interaction with our buddies in Number 10 is absolutely insane.”

He also refused to rule out running again to be prime minister. He said: “It might be technically possible, but it’s deeply unrealistic. It's what the Queen always used to say to me about politics, the politician should only do things if … it's about the voters.

“Obviously I can't exclude that in the future there might be a chance, but frankly, at present, it's pie in the sky.”