-1657258861.jpg)
Of one politician’s dignified end on the scaffold Shakespeare wrote, “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.” Boris Johnson’s belated resignation, however, was wholly in keeping with his chaotic tenure.
The rhetoric of his would-be successors and enemies has hardly been uplifting either. They have repeated ad nauseam that Johnson’s ouster was a question of “integrity” and “character,” but in reality his colleagues meant that he had become a loser why stick by him any longer?
The Tory party, the most durable democratic machine in the Western world, has an insatiable appetite for power and the prime minister was no longer serving up victory at the polls. As the dirt is heaped on his political grave, it is easy to forget that Johnson’s three-year premiership, unlike those of his unlucky predecessors, was consequential.
Some achievements like the early rollout of the vaccine program will stand. Whoever follows him into No. 10 will have to contend with a real legacy, for good and ill. First up, can that successor recover the ruling party’s fortunes?
The last time an undefeated Conservative leader with a large majority Margaret Thatcher was ejected by her colleagues, it quickly led to assassins’ remorse and a civil war that continued all the way to Brexit and beyond. The prime minister’s allies in Parliament, however, are fewer in number than Thatcher’s; his support is personal rather than ideological.
Out in the country, it is a different story. Johnson’s unlikely election coalition of traditional Tories in leafy suburbs and Brexit-supporting former Labour voters in the English Midlands and North looks fragile. The raucous tabloids knew what their aspirational readers thought: they backed the prime minister to the bitter end.
His successor will have to conciliate these fissiparous interests as well as an unruly parliamentary party. On paper, the large Conservative House of Commons majority looks impregnable. In practice, Johnson suffered reverses on both major domestic and foreign policy in repeated party rebellions. His government was weak.
From the beginning of his mandate, moralists and Cold Warriors on both the left and right wings of his party forced him to abandon the UK’s so-called “golden era of relations” with China for a more confrontational stance. Johnson learned his lesson well.
His early, full-hearted support for the Ukrainian cause in its war against Russia and his generous welcome for Hong Kong refugees can be traced back to his China debacle. Both the Tories and the Labour party which lost a hand every time Johnson played the patriotic card will likely continue his new Cold War with the dictators.
Johnson also reversed course on his plan to tackle the housing crisis when Tory backbenchers revolted against planning deregulation. His successor, the fourth Conservative prime minister in six years, is guaranteed a bumpy ride in Parliament and is therefore unlikely to use up capital on hard-pressed Generation Rent when they need the votes of affluent, aging Boomers.
Second, the issue of Europe needs resolving. Johnson “got Brexit done” mostly. His predecessor, Theresa May, couldn’t even make it to first base on a departure deal. Her predecessor, David Cameron, miscalculated on a referendum and lost both the vote and his job. Thatcher was brought down by divisions over Europe, too. Johnson, however, was destroyed by his own behavior in office. Europe was the making of him.
The prime minister has made the political weather over Europe and no successor will dare turn back the clock to Brussels time for years. Even the Labour opposition leader, Keir Starmer, who campaigned for a second referendum to reverse the voters’ verdict, last week declared that the UK will not rejoin the European single market, let alone full membership of the club, if he becomes prime minister.
Yet the loose ends of Brexit are left hanging. Relations with the UK’s biggest trade partner and strategic ally, the European Union, are at rock bottom: The two sides are at war over Northern Ireland’s trading regime. The next prime minister can either double down the defiance or reach an accommodation with Brussels. Northern Ireland bereft of a devolved government is a running sore that needs immediate treatment by a new leader.
Johnson never steered a steady course on the economy either. He initially paid lip service to the so-called Singapore-on-Thames model that would have made the UK the deregulated, free-trading, low-tax competitor that Brussels once feared and economic liberals prayed for.Britain’s productivity record has been dismal since the financial crash.In practice, however, the prime minister was always happier splashing the cash on welfare and bread and circuses.
Britain now has tariffs on steel imports, just like everyone else. State spending ballooned during the pandemic and the percentage of employees working from home is one of the highest in the Western world. Ironically, the UK increasingly imitates the European social democratic model. Johnson’s constitutional legacy has been ambiguous. His departure has deprived Scottish nationalists of their most effective recruiting sergeant.
His act as a buffoonish toff amused the English, but dismayed the puritanical Scots. And by taking the UK out of the EU, he has made the case for independence north of the border economically incredible. An Anglo-Scottish tariff would cripple the smaller divorcing partner for generations when accompanied by the withdrawal of Westminster’s enormous subsidy.
This week, Johnson’s former followers came to bury their Caesar, not to praise him. Indeed, he was a constitutional nightmare: an inveterate rule breaker, contemptuous of the unwritten understandings made for “good chaps.” But when the battle for his crown is over, will the victor do any better?
The Last Thing Scotland Needs Right Now: Therese Raphael This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Martin Ivens is the editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Previously, he was editor of the Sunday Times of London and its chief political commentator. - washingtonpost
Hot Topics
Pound Slides To Two-Year Low Against The Dollar
Voyager Seeks Bankruptcy Protection Amid Crypto Credit Crisis
4 Reasons To Build Your DApp On The DeFiChain Blockchain
