The battle over Boris Johnson’s legacy

In the 300-year history of the office of prime minister, we have never seen anything quite like “the events leading up to the resignation of its 55th holder”, said Anthony Seldon in The Times. Many PMs have left No. 10 in the midst of political storms; but whereas previous PMs were undone by scandals, coups or policy failures, Johnson was ejected because of all three.

And while other PMs behaved badly, and made enemies, none “had their personal integrity and judgement so repeatedly and openly questioned on moral issues”; and all of them managed to leave office with at least a modicum of dignity and grace.

The shame of it is that Johnson came to office in July 2019 with so much promise. His aides, knowing that he was light on detail, urged him to govern like Ronald Reagan – a likeable and charismatic showman, surrounded by “omnicompetent” figures who were not afraid to tell him “no”. But Johnson was too mistrustful of potential rivals to replicate that model; and three years on, he is having to be dragged out of No. 10, looking rather more like Donald Trump.

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Character flaws clear from the start

Ministers and Tory MPs are now trying to distance themselves from their erstwhile leader, said The Observer, but they “cannot escape” their responsibility for him. Johnson’s many character flaws – “overweening, principle-free ambition, recklessness, faux buffoonish ‘charm’” – were obvious when they chose him.

His claim that he hadn’t known that he’d appointed an alleged sex pest as his deputy chief whip proved the last straw for his colleagues; but they’d always known he was a “habitual liar”. He’d been sacked from The Times for lying, and even from the Tory front bench.

To boost their chances of staying in power, the Tories entrusted the running of the country to a man who was “manifestly” unfit for high office, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer.

What followed was one “abomination” after another, from the handing of Covid contracts worth billions to Tory cronies, to the attempt to rig the rules on standards to get a Brexiteer ally off the hook for lobbying; from the “trashing” of a treaty the PM had himself negotiated, to the “rampant law-breaking in No. 10” during the pandemic.

Lies and excuses

The lies and excuses about the drunken goings-on at Downing Street took everyone for fools. Even the voters who’d been entertained by the “Johnson shtick” started to feel that the “jokes were at their expense”. Meanwhile, at Whitehall, it was becoming clear that Johnson’s only skill was campaigning (and even that was oversold: the Tory victory in 2019 was less a vote for Johnson, than one against Jeremy Corbyn).

When it came to governing, he was shambolic and capricious. He had no coherent ideology; his only aim was to hold on to power. As the old saw has it: “If you put a crown on the head of a clown, you do not make him a king. You turn the palace into a circus.”

‘Swirling chaos’ of his tenure

What do we even have to show for the swirling chaos of his tenure, asked Aris Roussinos on UnHerd. Not much. Yes, he got “Brexit done”, but he didn’t do it well, and he failed to seize the opportunity it afforded to “reform Britain’s sclerotic institutions”.

He trumpets his mandate from the millions who voted for him, yet in so many ways, he has betrayed his base: home ownership has become, for many, a yet more impossible dream; “law and order is a distant memory”; the state “cannot control its external borders, nor guarantee its survival from break up by separatists.

The economy is a disaster, and social harmony more or less non-existent. Instead of winning our imported culture war and consigning it to history, its arcane disputes now infect almost every aspect of British life.”

Some early triumphs

Many Conservatives have felt betrayed by Johnson’s embrace of a “tax and spend” agenda, and absurd “net zero” policy, said Allister Heath in The Daily Telegraph, as well as by his moral laxity. But let us not forget his early triumphs: within months of becoming PM, he’d made a series of “audacious gambles” that rescued the UK “from a debilitating constitutional crisis”, delivered a “meaningful Brexit”, saved his divided party, and destroyed the “most fanatically dangerous leader in Labour’s history”.

His Brexit treaty was not flawless, said Daniel Johnson in Politico; but he did try to find a solution to the problems created by the Northern Ireland Protocol, and by the EU’s inflexibility. And though it was regrettable that the pandemic forced him to “postpone his post-Brexit agenda” of deregulation and global free trade, and set aside his “instinctive fiscal conservatism”, it was hardly his fault. As for his Covid strategy, it had some clear wins, including the vaccine rollout. Nor should we forget the role he played in building international support for Ukraine.

Whatever people think about Johnson now, his “historical significance”, as the PM who took Britain out of the EU, is “indisputable”, said Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times. Brexit is his legacy, and it is huge; but whether it’s for good, or ill, remains to be seen.