It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Best, because Boris Johnson finally resigned as UK prime minister. Worst, because he lasted this long, damaging his high office, his Conservative Party and his country. “It would have been better for the country if the Johnson era had ended months ago,” said British newspapers. But Johnson hung on till the bitter end. British peer Camilla Cavendish derided: “Even when they left the revolver and bottle of whisky on the table, Boris Johnson couldn’t take the hint. Ministers could no longer stomach his rule. But the prime minister clung on, convinced they were jealous of his genius.”
After two tense days of fears that Johnson may attempt a Trump-style putsch, Britain’s 77th PM resigned. But only after an avalanche of resignations by ministers and top bureaucrats. Quipped Leader of Opposition Keir Starmer of the Labour Party: “The ships were deserting the rat.” Reviled by opponents and revered by fans, Johnson was colourful, cavalier and controversial. He was also the most consequential British prime minister in recent times.
In 2019, he won the biggest election victory for the Tories in three decades. And then, for better or worse, he delivered on his promise to “Get Brexit Done”, and took his country out of the European Union in 2020. “He will go down as a significant prime minister, but not seen as good for the country. He never was any good at actually governing,” said Conservative politician David Lidington.
But “Teflon Boris” weathered scandals that would have destroyed any other prime minister. The scandals were of his own making, consistently revealing his character flaws—lying and rule-breaking. A “passing acquaintance with truth” and “rules are for fools” seemed to be his philosophy. The lie that nailed his coffin was his claim that he was unaware of his loyalist Chris Pincher’s misconduct when he appointed him to oversee party discipline as deputy chief whip.
A drunken Pincher had aggressively groped two men in a private club. A top civil servant disclosed in Parliament that Johnson had been briefed when Pincher committed a similar offence in 2019. Johnson joked, “Pincher by name, Pincher by nature”, admitting, in “hindsight”, that appointing Pincher was “wrong”. Wrong only because he got caught lying. Critics say Johnson’s lack of a moral compass is his core problem. Journalist Marc Roche’s verdict: “Johnson is Britain’s worst prime minister because he is a serial liar.”
The Pincher episode was the nail, but the coffin was prepared by his Tory party when Johnson lost two Conservative seats in the parliamentary byelections in June. Lies, sleaze and scandals are tolerated, but not election defeats. Johnson had become a political liability, exactly as the legendary Tory leader Margaret Thatcher was in 1990. She, too, was knifed by her partymen.
Apart from Brexit, Johnson’s successes include spearheading a world-class Covid vaccination rollout. His £70 billion “furlough” avoided mass unemployment by paying 80 per cent of wages during lockdown, protecting 11.6 million jobs. He was the first world leader to risk full opening of the economy, scrap travel restrictions, home office mandates, face masks, and self-isolation restrictions.
He talked about “levelling up” economically neglected parts of Britain and, unlike other global populists, advocated mitigating climate change. He vigorously supported Ukraine with money, weapons and fiery rhetoric. He imposed tough sanctions on Russia and mocked “shirtless” Vladimir Putin’s “toxic masculinity”. Putin responded, “A shirtless Boris Johnson is disgusting.”
Brexit aside, Johnson’s reign will be remembered for its failures and flaws. It collapsed under the weight of his deceit, contradictions, his readiness to outsource hard work to aides, and his disrespect for conventions and rules. Notwithstanding the vaccination campaign, Johnson fumbled his way through Covid, his libertine instincts at odds with restrictions and lockdown mandates. Health experts say his U-turns and delays led to Britain’s high death rate—the seventh highest in the world, with more than 1.71 lakh deaths. Paul Goodman, editor of the website ConservativeHome, says Johnson is like a “Turkish sultan or a Tudor monarch, ruling by whim, constantly changing his mind, with no clear strategic direction”.
Pincher was not the only dubious party loyalist whom Johnson tried to save by bending and flouting rules. Johnson survived “partygate”, “wallpapergate” and many other “gates”. He violated his own ban on partying during Covid by attending 20 office parties—and then denying he attended any. A party donor funded a £1,12,549 (more than Rs1 crore) redecoration of his Downing Street apartment, which included £840-a-roll (Rs80,000) gold wallpaper. Johnson’s aides nicknamed his new wife, Carrie, “Marie Antoinette”. Said Starmer: “Johnson was always unfit for office. He has been responsible for lies, scandal and fraud on an industrial scale.”
Johnson’s rule-breaking was both domestic and international. He broke his own Brexit treaty with the European Union that demarcated an international trade border between Britain and the insurrection-prone Northern Ireland. Under Johnson, the unity of the union strained to breaking point, with the pro-EU Scotland announcing a referendum on independence from Britain, scheduled for next year.
Putin’s nemesis: Johnson with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv in April | Getty Images
Despite his bluster and bombast, his gambles and gaffes, and dishonesty and devilry, Johnson is a historic figure, in a way few of his predecessors are. His immediate predecessor, Theresa May, cut a sorry figure. Spurned by people, parliament and her party, she resigned tearfully. Her Tory predecessor as prime minister, David Cameron, ended his stint in a morass of defeat. Rather than internally resolving the Conservative Party division between leaving and staying in the EU (as he wanted), he thrust the dilemma onto the nation by calling a referendum. The toxic result was a bitterly divided Britain, still battling painful Brexit consequences that are far from resolved. Cameron resigned when the Brexiteers won resoundingly.
Cameron’s predecessor, Gordon Brown, who headed Britain’s last Labour government, was thrown out for being indecisive. But he, too, seemed to have a penchant for throwing things—mobile phones, papers and even a printer—at his aides. Brown’s predecessor, Tony Blair, who served two terms, began well by implementing minimum wages and investing in education. But his popularity crashed when he bought George Bush’s lies about weapons of mass destruction and supported the Iraq war.
The bar was low for Johnson when he came in; the bar is even lower for his successors. While “Bojo” always cloaked his ambition, several Tory leaders have already announced their intentions to succeed him. Chancellor Rishi Sunak, the Indian-origin leader whose resignation was critical to Johnson’s collapse, is a frontrunner. If he succeeds, critics have a field day headlining “colony strikes back”. Foreign minister Liz Truss is a candidate; so is former foreign minister Jeremy Hunt, and the eloquent Tory MP, Tom Tugendhat. The expectations from the next PM are few: Restore standards. Rule with integrity.
The Tory succession process can last until September, spooking several leaders who fear Johnson’s capacity to poison the well. Beneath his breezy bonhomie, Johnson can be vengeful. He spent the night before his resignation “sacking the snake”—Michael Gove, his one-time Brexit ally who demanded his resignation. Fearing Johnson, several Tory leaders demand a “swift succession”. One Tory leader said, “It’s like one of those horror movies when you think the baddy has been killed, but then he comes back out of the grave.”
Rather than haunt, Johnson in his next avatar, is more likely to regale… and make loads of money. He has often complained there is no money in being the prime minister. With two children born while in office, and several more from his wild past, Johnson has grumbled that life is expensive. A lucrative writing and speaking career awaits this “Great Entertainer”. A Boris book on Brexit and breaches, jokes and jibes, deceit and deceptions, puns and prose, gore and giggles, is a guaranteed bestseller. Or, to quote him, his future could be messy—“as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters”.
Britain’s future is grim. Despite its economic damage, Brexit is now embedded. The Bank of England warns that Britain’s economy would suffer deeper and longer than other European economies. Public services struggle with backlogs, labour shortages and strikes. The next British PM has to be a repairman—mending relations not just with the EU, the US, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but also with Big Business (Johnson’s business policy was “F*** Business”) and the British Remainers who were opposed to Brexit.
Johnson’s successor must deal with the aftershocks of Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, climate catastrophe and a full-blown ‘cost of living’ crisis, with spiralling energy and food prices. At 9.1 per cent, inflation in the UK is likely to stay higher than for comparable nations. Britons worry about making ends meet. As Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev said, “People don’t fear the end of the world, they fear the end of the month.”
All this bad news is not new, but for months, the scandal-mired Johnson government delivered drift and disarray. For a brief, not-so-shining moment, Johnson was a lovable rascal. He is lovable no more. Labour unrest is spreading, war is raging in Europe, sterling is sliding, recession is creeping, and inflation is worsening.
It is not the best of times for Britain.