Navigating Uncharted Waters: Shogun and Post-Brexit Britain
FX’s new adaptation of James Clavell’s historical novel Shogun has received high praise. Much of this is deservedly focussed on the Japanese actors and behind-the-scenes work that goes into creating such gripping historical and cultural authenticity. Sticking out like a sore thumb among all the palace intrigue, ornate furnishings and subtle traditions is the show’s ostensible main character: Englishman, John Blackthorne.
Being British and somewhat ignorant of Japanese history, it’s appealing for me to latch on to Blackthorne’s point of view. He serves as a sweary and defiant fish-out-of-water, asking the questions that are also puzzling those of us who aren’t Japanophiles. This role is played excellently by Cosmo Jarvis, someone who feels familiar owing partly to his resemblance to Tom Hardy (and Hardy-a-likes such as Logan Marshall-Greene). But it’s his similarity to another famous Englishman that caught my attention.
Despite being set in 17th century feudal Japan, Jarvis’ performance seems to be channelling a more recent historical chancer: the bluster and brinkmanship of Boris Johnson, especially in his Brexit campaign and subsequent negotiations. Johnson’s appeal to the British public rested on a special alchemy; one that, when finally exposed to the realities of governing, burnt away more quickly than expected. Sitting somewhere between Jeremy Clarkson and Nigel Farage, Johnson’s chummy, patrician brand of bonhomie certainly struck a chord with the general public, no more so than when he was decrying the apparent vicissitudes the UK suffered through its voluntary membership of the EU.
Swashbuckling Britain or Perfidious Albion?
Pro-Brexit politicians used a number of metaphors to argue their case. One particularly memorable set were those related to the UK’s seafaring and imperial history. Instead of seeing itself as part of Europe, they argued, the UK should become ‘Global Britain’ and renew its connections with commonwealth countries around the world — despite markedly ambivalent responses to such suggestions. A week after the Brexit vote, Conservative MP Grant Schapps claimed:
…we need to rediscover that swashbuckling spirit…
More recently, in 2023 Chris Carr, Director of the UK Government’s Brexit Opportunities Unit, stated that the UK should rediscover its roots as a:
buccaneering, free-trading nation
Even the term used for Vote Leave supporters — Brexiteers — echoes this maritime nomenclature. Taking at their word, these politicians were employing such imagery to highlight the potential benefits of Brexit: more trade, with more countries around the world, and more opportunities for tenacious entrepreneurs. However, outside of the UK, this nostalgic language instead can conjure bitter memories of naval blockades and extractvie colonialism.
The parallels with John Blackthorne’s arrival in Japan are plain. This kind of Elizabethan adventurer — in the mould of Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh or Blackthorne’s real life counterpart, William Adams — is exactly the kind of figure the Brexiteers were referring to. John Blackthorne’s optimism in finding ‘the Japans’ and being able to readily trade once he had done so, wouldn’t seem out of place in the 2016 calls for belief in the ‘sunlit uplands’ that would surely be delivered once the UK exited the EU. Like the referendum itself, Blackthorne’s purpose in Japan is very much in the eye of the beholder: in his view, he is an privateer pilot, helpfully opening up mutually-beneficial trade routes, whereas in the eyes of the established Portuguese, he is a pirate who has already wreaked havoc on their outposts in the area.
But more than his mission, it’s Jarvis’ portrayal of Blackthorne that seems to be chanelling Boris Johnson directly in both accent and mannerisms. Outwardly, Blackthrone presents himself as an English gentleman: jocular, bumbling but ultimately straightforward. He embodies a kind of unassuming British charm and absurdity and exceptionalism, like Withnail complaining that ‘we’ve gone on holiday by mistake’ or Johnson dangling from a zip wire, brandishing Union Jacks in the run up to the 2012 Olympics. Only this time, Blackthorne hopes to maintain that he has established British relations with a major world power ‘by mistake’, rather than as part a calculated ploy, something that may be revealed as his confiscated journals are translated.
John Blackthorn also revels in the choice language he selects to insult his interlocutors, hiding behind the discretion of a sympathetic translator. It’s a way for Blackthorne to express his frustrations at dealing with an alien culture, but also his disdain for the some of its people: insults range from ‘you, sir, are a silly man’, to ‘black-eyed son of a shit-fested whore’ and even ‘milk-dribbling fuck smear’. It’s the kind of profane British insults that were perfected on shows like The Thick of It, but which have since reached a twee nadir online with cringeworthy, self-satisfied neologisms like ‘cockwomble’ or ‘wankpuffin’.
Boris Johnson was also gifted at turning a memorable phrases with his many ‘Borisisms’, such as resurrecting defunct words like ‘boondoggle’ or labelling then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn a ‘mutton-headed old mugwump’. If anyone found these kinds of comments charming when he was a journalist, occasional panel TV show host, and even London Mayor, the sheen eventually wore off the closer he came to greater power. Lurid insults may have been grist to the mill for some of his early supporters but a serving PM calling British muslim women ‘letter boxes’, referred to Obama’s ‘ancestral dislike’ of Churchill, and allegedly approving of letting ‘the bodies pile high’ during the COVID-19 pandemic was too far. His oafish and off-hand comments even caused regular diplomatic crises such as during the negotiations over Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with Iran, or when comparing EU expansion to Napoleon and Hitler’s wars of conquest.
A Matter of Perspective
Whether intentional or not, Jarvis Cosmo’s portrayal of John Blackthorne with a Johnson-esque tinge is all the better for it. It captures the duality and duplicity of his position in Japan. As Blackthorne puts it, ‘we both have our masters to serve.’ He can be at once a sincere ambassador for Britain, revealing Portugal’s plans for carving up the world with Spain and ruling over newly-converted Catholics, while at the same time serving his crown’s agenda by establishing trade with a new market, something that the British empire would later acquire elsewhere through gunboat diplomacy. Historically speaking, the Portuguese accusations of piracy are likely to be true: state-sanctioned plunder was an active policy under Elizabeth I. And the irony of an Englishman criticising Spain and Portugal for their imperial designs is readily apparent.
If all this sounds like a reach, and if Jarvis Cosmo didn’t have a certain scruffy-haired ex-PM in mind when preparing for the role, so be it. But the comparison should come as no surprise. If anything, the world today has become closer to the era of Shogun than any time in the last sixty years. Many nations are swinging away from liberal trading policies and ditching globalisation in favour of more isolationism and protectionism. Strongmen have been on the rise, from the USA and South America to Turkey, Italy, and Hungary to India, China and Indonesia. The island nations of the UK and Japan parallel each other in several aspects with contradictory histories of proclaimed self-sufficiency while overseeing sprawling empires, the consequences of which both fail to fully face up to. A scene in Shogun in which the bloody efficacy of newly acquired cannons are demonstrated is also a chilling precursor of the total mechanised warfare of which Japan and Britain would be both victim and brutal persecutor, and which has sadly resurfaced in Europe and the Middle East. Meanwhile the real swashbuckling is being done around the horn of Africa by Somali pirates and Houthis holding the world trade system to ransom in the Red Sea corridor.
I haven’t read the Shogun novel, so I eagerly wait for the next episode and the conclusion of the series. Will John Blackthorne’s fate be mirrored in that of Boris Johnson? Despite a lifetime of preparation, Johnson’s time in the top job was cut short, essentially by his own lack of discipline and scruples. When it came to the post-Brexit negotiations, the reality usually fell short of the colourfully-painted predictions. Replacing the world’s largest trading block (situated conveniently on the doorstep) with a roster of nations who have no incentive to grant favours, after half a century with no practice of bilateral trade negotiations was never a recipe for success. Despite a much trumpeted new trade agreement, British exports to Japan have in fact fallen. Blackthorne may have even more in common with Johnson than at first glance: overly confident, in over his head, and taken advantage of by well-organised forces that are far above his comprehension. Even if a blustering posh boy can make for great entertainment, when reality bites they soon discover they are far out of their depth.
