Britain has moved on from bungling Boris Johnson

This is Iain Martin’s weekly newsletter, exclusively for Reaction subscribers.

One of the main myths about Boris Johnson among his die-hard supporters is that their hero remains popular. It is not the case and has not been the case for several years now. Yet no amount of evidence, in the form of opinion polling, will shake the conviction that Johnson is connected in some deep and almost magical way with the supposed real country, with unfashionable opinion, or what used to be termed in the US the silent majority.  

The origin of the myth is rooted in something real, of course. Johnson was once popular with a substantial part of the electorate. It was because he had that special connection with segments of the electorate that his party decided to choose him as leader in an emergency in July 2019 when parliament was blocking Brexit, refusing to agree any version of it, and threatening to refuse to implement the referendum result at all. There were other voters – during the London mayoral period and the Brexit campaign – who liked his unorthodox style and cavalier swagger. Boris annoying smart, or smart arse, metropolitan opinion and winding up the puritans only made him more popular with such voters.

Eddie Hughes, a Tory MP and a genial fellow, put it this way last week: “When Boris came to Bloxwich in 2019, the high street came to a standstill.  Everyone wanted to wish him well or get a selfie. Buses stopped while the driver and the passengers took photos. No one else in British politics has the same affinity with the public.”

Tweak the tense in that last line – “No one else in British politics had the same affinity with the public” – and it makes sense. 

Those days are gone, Eddie.

Of course, Boris making a visit now to an area that skewed Leave in 2016 would still be stopped for a selfie and attract attention. Fame and curiosity should not be confused with political viability, however. When it comes to voting, the public rumbled him when it emerged he ran such a slapdash Number 10 that partying in breach of Covid laws happened on his watch, under his nose. Staff who would not have dared do this under any of his post-War predecessors did not fear or respect Johnson enough to behave. When what had happened emerged, the then PM blustered and worse. In a chaotic summer last year he then had to be removed from office.

If there be any doubt about how the public views him, on the day of the former Prime Minister’s decision last week to step down as an MP with immediate effect a poll was published showing what the voters think of leaders and celebrities.

The poll was conducted by J.L. Partners, the firm run by James Johnson. It was conducted in a perfectly proper way according to the rules that govern the industry.

Here are the net popularity numbers:

King Charles III: +19
Holly Willoughby: -12
Keir Starmer: -14
Rishi Sunak: -26
Phillip Schofield: -39
Xi Jinping: -40
Boris Johnson: -45
Prince Andrew: -71
Vladimir Putin: -82

After the last twenty years – featuring the Iraq War, the financial crisis of 2008, the Brexit wars and Covid – very few public figures are particularly popular. There is a trust deficit. Even so, if Boris is really so popular out in the country then it should show up somewhere in a survey such as this. He should at least be able to poll better than Schofield, the disgraced presenter of ITV’s This Morning.

When confronted with such information, the die-hards deny it. On Twitter among Boris fans it is not hard to find people who will question the entire basis of polling, because they were not asked themselves to take part, or because in the run up to something as complex as a general election the polls diverge or do not call the result of a close binary vote such as a referendum correctly.

On net popularity the pollsters are not dealing with fine distinctions or a margin of error. The broad outcome of these polls is pretty clear, and Boris is not popular any more.

In defiance of reality, all weekend Johnson’s small and dwindling band of supporters in and around the House of Commons have talked up the likelihood of a Tory civil war and the possibility he will return as the head of some great popular, or populist uprising. As well as Johnson quitting, two of his allies announced they would resign from the Commons too. Nigel Adams and Nadine Dorries are leaving. That means Rishi Sunak will face three awkward by-elections, including the one created by Johnson.

I do wonder if the penny has now dropped with ultra-loyalists Adams and Dorries. Both seem to have received an unorthodox guarantee from their man – stay on to avoid causing a by-election now and a delayed peerage comes later. This is not an arrangement that is allowed. Their hero was, one last time, not across the detail and not in a position to make any promises.  

There will be further skirmishes and perhaps worse. Jacob Rees-Mogg MP says the party must allow Johnson to stand in another, safer seat. This is surely wrong. The decision to depart early from Uxbridge lands Rishi Sunak and the wider Tory party in the soup, in a tough by-election. Why would, or should, the party find a safe seat for such a person who did this? Especially when some of this person’s other supporters are talking in such dark terms off the record about destroying Sunak and seizing the leadership, and say they want Boris back to make this happen.

It is evident the Tory party is not going to facilitate such an outcome for the simple reason that it is not in its interests. It is not in its interests because Britain has moved on from Boris Johnson. Considering how complex the problems are facing the country, on the economy, public sector reform, and business and investment, nothing in his record or style of leadership suggests he would have anything much to contribute. Going back to him would mean going against the overwhelming bulk of the country.

For all its flaws, and propensity to entangle itself in farce, the Conservative party has been in operation for so long in part because it tends to be able quicker than most parties to work out where the deep currents of opinion in England, particularly, are flowing.

Boris Johnson is now being swept away on that current. Since 2005, when he was fired for misleading the then party leader Michael Howard, he has been one of the biggest, and then the biggest, figures in public life. That is a long time, way longer than most, to be at the forefront. Eventually the public grows tired and works out a politician. Jokes wear thin.

For many years Johnson will write entertaining columns and earn millions writing books and making speeches, mainly abroad. In certain parts of England there will still be interest in him as a storyteller and national card. Perhaps he will be involved in buying a newspaper.

What he will not be again is Prime Minister. Britain did that and now few people want to repeat the experience.

Nicola Sturgeon, first rate political soap opera

Where were you when you heard Nicola Sturgeon had been arrested? This is the question observers of Scottish politics will ask each other for weeks, possibly months. For all the hilarious banality of the scandal afflicting the SNP, involving illicit motorhomes and allegations of missing funds, the former First Minister being arrested was still quite a moment. Not quite the Kennedy assassination, but up there in the annals of British scandal. Sturgeon’s arrest means the last First Minister of Scotland to not be arrested was Labour’s Jack McConnell, who left office in 2007. After McConnell came the SNP’s Alex Salmond, who was arrested, put on trial and acquitted.

Displaying that accident prone poor sense of timing and lamentable judgment that made him First Minister of Scotland at the worst possible moment, Humza Yousaf was interviewed on the BBC’s flagship Sunday morning show at the weekend. He told Laura Kuenssberg that Nicola Sturgeon was “in a good place and doing well, for sure.”

A few hours later Sturgeon was arrested. The place she was in was a police station. On Sunday evening she was released without charge and issued a statement professing her innocence.

Senior SNP figures last week decried Westminster and the Johnson resignation as a “third rate political soap opera.” That’s right. Now, the SNP scandal, there’s a first rate political soap opera. I, for one, cannot wait to view the next episode.

Labour getting its act together

What’s that sound? Someone trying to stifle a giggle? It’s Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, contemplating the state of the Tory party and the condition of the SNP. The last week could not have gone better for Labour.

Starmer had a success of his own too, when he junked Ed Miliband’s £28bn a year green infrastructure spending splurge. The priority, said shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, must be caution on the public finances.

Last week, in this newsletter, I asked when the parties would get real about geopolitics and the energy crunch. Explain to voters the energy transition will take many decades and in the interim Britain needs to keep the lights on.

Starmer has not yet done that, and presumably won’t. His party is ditching some of its more fanciful promises, however. It is growing serious about winning power and starting to get its act together.

La dolce vita

Apologies for this latest newsletter landing on a Monday morning, rather than a Saturday when it is meant to arrive and has generally arrived since I first started sending it out to subscribers seven years ago this month.

Last week, I was travelling for work in Italy and on Saturday was in Siena hosting a panel on the final day of a conference on the Future of Europe, put together by an organisation called Vision. It featured politicians, think tankers and academics.

“Doing less but better” was the title of my panel on Europe. Asking a Briton to chair this session suggests someone involved had a sense of humour. In recent years the British might be said to have been doing less but worse. In the event, there followed a fascinating discussion between a leading Dutch MEP, a prominent Conservative think tank brain, a French journalist and an EU official. All I had to do was ask the occasional question and involve the audience.

Why was I even there? After Brexit, I believe we Brits need to rethink our attitudes to Europe and dealing with the EU and nation states in Europe. This will horrify some of my fellow Brexiteers, but I think they’re wrong. We’re on the European continent, the EU is a fact of life and we need to get to know Europe better again. Some of it will be bilateral and some with – deep breath – the EU. Take it as seriously as the US or Japan takes Brussels and the EU. Our embassy there should be quadrupled in size for a start. After the turmoil of Brexit (and I’m glad we left) we need to do much more to improve links with our neighbours.

It’s a two way process. Ukraine and European security featured a great deal on the conference agenda. On defence, intelligence and security, Britain is one of the continent’s biggest players. We may not be in the EU. We are key in NATO.

Beyond the conference, one of the highlights of the trip to Italy was a visit earlier in the week to Bellagio. We were last in that stylish town on Lake Como 22 years ago. Although it has got too bling in the intervening years it retains its magic. We followed the advice of the lady running the small, family hotel where we stayed across the lake. Get a boat early in the morning to Bellagio before the hordes arrive, pretend to be a superior sort of tourist who is not part of some large assault party. Have a stroll, have a coffee and reserve a table for lunch at noon. My wife found the restaurant at Hotel Suisse where we last ate in the summer of 2001. It is still run by the same couple. When we started lunch all was calm on the promenade. By the time we had eaten our perfect pasta and drained a glass of wine, the tourists from China, rich groups from the US and Italian school parties were surging ashore in vast numbers. It was time to run for the boat and get out of Bellagio.

Have a good week.

Iain Martin,
Publisher and CEO,
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