What did you expect? That Boris Johnson would be a competent, serious PM? The opportunist who makes a political career with the image of the jolly dolt? For decades it has been known what kind of man Johnson is: one who routinely lies, has no loyalty to anyone, and weighs every decision according to a single criterion—whether it benefits him. If many Tories are now acting as if they were totally surprised that parties were held at Johnson’s official residence during the lockdown, that is hardly convincing. The fact that they fall away from him so quickly has more to do with cold calculation.
Johnson’s election victory at the end of 2019 was above all a Brexit triumph. He won for one reason: his assurance that he would finally implement the EU exit. The Tory faction in the House of Commons, like the Conservative press in London, knew all the shortcomings attached to Johnson. But that didn’t matter. The only thing that counted for them was that with “Boris” as the figurehead of Brexit, they had the best chance of stemming the growing competition from Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist Brexit Party.
But since that peak two years ago, Johnson has had little to show for it. The promised “Brexit dividend”, i.e. the financial benefit of leaving the EU, is nowhere to be seen. Instead, British companies are struggling with delivery bottlenecks, delays and additional costs. The regional balance has also remained a dream so far: In a new report, the think tank IPPR North writes that, despite all the rhetoric, there are hardly any concrete measures to be seen that would even out the gap between North and South. “Britain is as divided as ever, and centralization is increasing,” the authors write.
There are also several corruption scandals that are damaging the government’s reputation. Johnson’s approval ratings have recently plummeted. Which made Trump a risk for future elections. It’s not so much the prime minister’s misconduct that upsets the former cheerleaders – after all, they stood by him for more than two years – but the fact that he’s no longer public with his ploy and is bringing the Tories into disrepute .
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