Boris Johnson is the true heir of the spirit of David Owen, the centrist Eurosceptic

Is the prime minister a Blairite, asks John Rentoul, or do his ideological roots reach further back?

Lord Owen, founder of the Social Democratic Party, is Boris Johnson’s model (Getty Images)

Towards the end of his speech to the online Conservative Party conference, Boris Johnson invited his remote audience to “raise your eyes” and “imagine that you are arriving in Britain in 2030”. Rather modestly, I thought, he said, “...when I hope that much of the programme I have outlined will be delivered”. 

What was fascinating, though, was not that his imaginary visitor would be arriving in a “zero carbon jet” – a part of his programme that definitely won’t be delivered by then – but that you would “flash your Brexit blue passport or your digital ID” before getting into an electric taxi to travel around a country that has been transformed for the better. 

Your digital what? I could hardly believe my ears. Here was a prime minister, a leader of a party that had opposed Tony Blair’s plan for ID cards, performing a 180-degree U-turn in broad daylight in one of his most important speeches setting the direction of his government for the next year.