Put some red meat on plans and you’ll bounce back, Boris
HAVING just survived his leadership challenge, Boris Johnson must now get on with the job of being the proper Tory he was elected to be in 2019 – bringing on Brexit benefits, encouraging growth by cutting taxes and shrinking the state.
He can be the best cheerleader for Britain but is sinking in a mire of bad behaviour and broken promises. For the sake of the UK, he needs to get a grip and start delivering on solid Conservative values.
The coalition of rebels against him include die-hard Remainers who want to rejoin the EU and former allies who are just frustrated by his lurch Leftwards.
It is the supreme irony that much of the economic trouble we now face was the result of him legislating lockdown and the stringent rules that caught him out in Partygate.
Being naturally libertarian, he probably thought that fed-up Britons were as likely to bend the rules as he has, but it is this ill-judged hypocrisy that has given his enemies in Parliament the weapon to beat him with relentlessly and it’s getting through to voters.
Boris’ reputation for being a vote winner is starting to fray and may well unravel in upcoming by-elections. Yet it is true that he has performed well in delivering effective Covid jabs quicker than the EU and has led boldly in the resistance to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
WHERE his parliamentary support is waning is his departure from fundamental Tory values. He radically extended the role of the state during the pandemic and is seeking to replicate that intrusion in to our daily lives with his net-zero campaign despite its cost to hard-pressed working people in higher energy bills and rocketing inflation.
Just as he was pushed into a damaging lockdown because of scaremongering pandemic computer modelling, so he is making the same mistake by giving too much credence to computer manufactured predictions of climate catastrophe by embarking on the national selfharm that is net-zero, hurtling towards a green nirvana that will make us poorer and colder.
Red wall voters and their MPs would far prefer a national project investing in shale gas and North Sea gas that levels up by generating more high-quality jobs, giving industry and families lower energy bills.
Similarly, he could help ease the cost-of-living crisis by cutting unnecessary levies on energy, slashing VAT and bringing down taxation.
City experts are saying that higher than expected tax revenues are giving Chancellor Rishi Sunak the room to cut taxes by £30billion to help alleviate our cost-of-living crisis – and the best way to do that is to cut VAT, a benefit of being out of the EU. Boris needs to act now and reassure Tory voters and MPs that he is taking the nation in the right direction.
We don’t need a bigger state, we need more economic growth.
Taking back control of our borders was another Boris pledge that appears to be faltering as annual immigration reaches a record one million.
He can rightly argue that our economy needs highly skilled migrants to fill job vacancies, but the sight of unimpeded illegal migrants crossing the Channel thanks to gangsters cannot be tolerated.
Boris’ greatest strength is his unapologetic patriotism. He is always batting for Britain and its glorious history and it should be realised by Tory rebels that replacing him with a more Leftleaning, uninspiring leader is only going to diminish that passion and do little to encourage true Tories to get out and vote.
It is striking that Labour is generally failing to race ahead in the polls because they are correctly viewed as driven by woke policies that find patriotism troubling.
AS A Labour spokesperson argued over the weekend, their version of patriotism is backing the BBC and Channel 4, both institutions that sought to undermine Brexit and are on the Left in the culture war – not what patriotic ex-Labour voters want.
Maybe the best of Boris has come and gone, but if only he can come up with some Tory red meat that puts real distance between him and Labour, then he can bounce back. Because the alternative of a woke, everexpanding and taxing big government is bad news for the future success of this country.
Boris needs to start re-connecting with the Tory grassroots – the people who propelled him into power in 2019.
A humbling tour of vulnerable Conservative constituencies should be compulsory for him so he can come face to face with what really matters in our great nation.
‘The alternative of a woke big government is bad news for UK’