Fall of a Tory election hero
» Vote winner has become a liability » Parties, sleaze and Brexit failings
JUST 31 months ago, Boris Johnson took the Conservatives to their biggest general election triumph for 32 years.
His “Get Brexit Done” campaign, and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership, delivered an 80-seat Tory majority.
Within weeks of his historic victory in December 2019, the UK had left the EU, smashing the deadlock that had paralysed politics since the 2016 referendum.
Now so many MPs have turned their backs on Johnson that last night he faced a humiliating confidence vote. How did he lose the support of so many of his MPs?
RESPECT
Johnson had been the Tory grassroots’ darling for more than a decade before he spearheaded the crusade to leave the EU.
On July 23, 2019, he won the Tory leadership race, and immediately alienated swathes of the parliamentary party by sacking ministers he deemed Remainers. The decision to illegally prorogue Parliament stunned Tories proud of the party’s respect for Britain’s laws.
In December 2019, Johnson got the general election he wanted and the Tories took 365 seats, a net gain of 47. Labour’s Red Wall was demolished and Corbyn quit, humiliated.
Johnson delighted in predictions he would wield power for a decade. But his woes quickly mounted. In March 2020, he locked down the UK as the pandemic took hold, angering libertarian Conservatives.
Other MPs were furious he had waited so long, allowing Covid-19 to rampage unchecked. Elderly people were sent from hospitals back to care homes without being tested for the virus. An estimated 20,000 died. Johnson himself caught Covid and was admitted to intensive care. He almost died too.
As he lay in hospital, his approval ratings hit new highs, 66% of voters saying he was doing well as PM.
But as the rest of us were shut in our homes, unable to see lovedones, lockdown-busting parties were held in Downing Street.
When the Mirror exposed them 18 months later, the events would weaken the PM’s grip on power. Johnson had already spent political capital protecting Dominic Cummings after the Mirror told how the aide drove to County Durham and went on a day trip to Barnard Castle in lockdown. Brexit, which the PM claimed to have “got done”, rumbled along in the background. The Northern Ireland Protocol was agreed by Johnson in 2019, but he has now spent months threatening to rip up an international agreement he negotiated and signed.
Each time he found himself in a corner, Johnson announced a new spending pledge, sparking clashes with his Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
STANDARDS
Some £400billion was spent in the pandemic, including billions on PPE deals. Contracts signed with Tory cronies fuelled sleaze claims.
Tories keen on standards were horrified, as they were about allegations over the funding of a £58,000 refurb of the Downing Street flat.
Trying to block a 30-day suspension of MP Owen Paterson after a standards probe also raised ire.
Then there was the shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the PM still facing claims, which he denies, that he intervened to evacuate dogs as Afghans who served with UK troops were left behind.
Plans to send Channel migrants to Rwanda trashed Tory claims to compassion and liberalism.
Each bad decision cost support, leaving today’s Johnson a shadow of the man seen punching the air after 2019’s election victory.