It is two years since Boris Johnson achieved one of the most remarkable election victories in modern history. The large Tory majority gave him personal power to a degree rarely seen in British politics, a chance to reshape his country and party. Having stood for office as a ‘liberal Conservative’, he would be able to govern as one. What has he done with that authority?
He ends the year with dozens of ‘red wall’ Tory MPs in open rebellion against him, rejecting his vaccine passports. During Tony Blair’s premiership, Johnson crusaded against the principle of identity cards, saying they were not just intrusive and pointless but represented a huge and unacceptable shift in the relationship between the state and the individual. He is unable to present any evidence for the need for vaccine passports now, but ordered his MPs to vote for them anyway. He had to rely on the Labour party for support.
The parliamentary rebellion might not have been as exciting as some of the year’s other political dramas, but it was telling: not so much Tories vs PM as Johnson vs Johnson. The Prime Minister is doing, saying and enacting many of the sort of things he spent his time campaigning against as a backbencher, journalist, editor and mayor. His transmogrification is baffling old friends and alienating new supporters. Polls suggest 60 per cent of Brexit voters no longer back him, not necessarily because they disagree with what he does, but because they have given up trying to work out what he stands for.
The PM is doing and saying many of the sort of things he spent his time campaigning against as a backbencher
When he was seeking votes in 2019, Johnson signed a pledge in the Tory manifesto not to increase VAT, income tax or national insurance.
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