Will Boris Johnson’s COVID Hypocrisy Finally Break His Political Grip in the UK?

A much-awaited report on booze-soaked parties attended by top U.K. officials — including Prime Minister Boris Johnson — in violation of COVID rules was finally released today by senior civil servant Sue Gray. It marks the worst crisis of Boris Johnson’s premiership.

The U.K. has been under COVID lockdown for 17 of the past 22 months. This is because the government tried to compromise between two instincts. One side has been a medical consensus to do everything possible to reduce fatalities. Schools, workplaces, Parliament were all closed. Even with these restrictions, an alarming 155,000 people have been killed in the U.K., twice as many civilians than in World War II.

On the other hand the government also has its fair share of COVID skepticals, not least Prime Minister Johnson who admitted early in the pandemic that Larry Vaughn, a fictional Mayor, was teaching him lessons. Jaws, who keeps the town’s beaches open in defiance of the shark threat. People still die from COVID at a rate of more than 2,000 per week. Yet, the government is lifting restrictions and repealing laws that required people to wear masks in shops and public transport.

A leader is responsible for enacting the rules when there is a crisis in a democracy. Over the past two years, U.K. citizens have been reduced to being spectators while Johnson fills our screens with updates on the latest intensifications or relaxations of the lockdown. When the deaths were at the worst in spring 2020, our prime minister told us that staying at home would “squash the sombrero” of infections. When the rules eased, that summer, he was back on our screens saying that the old regime had been the greatest restriction on our liberty in “peace or war.”

A growing number of reports have claimed that Johnson and his closest advisers at 10 Downing Street were having a party in violation of their own rules, even though the country was under lockdown. Details of some 15 of these partiesLeaked documents show that each one of them has been following the same cycle of denials and grudging admissions.

Ministers initially denied that any events took place. The ministers then denied that any officials were present. They also denied that the prime Minister was present. In the last week, we have ended up with Conservative members of parliament saying, after the prime minister had been seen partying with officials, family members and friends, that he must have been “ambushed” with a birthday cake.

The effect of these revelations has been to reduce the prime minister’s approval ratings, which have collapsed.

Boris Johnson was almost invulnerable until November 2021. When he was elected leader of the Conservative Party in summer 2019, the party was still struggling in the opinion polls. It rose immediately after Johnson took over. At the time of December 2019’s general election, his party was leading Labour by 11 points. This gave the Conservatives their first win in an election since Margaret Thatcher in 1987.

The key to Johnson’s success has been the perception that he is unlike other politicians. Johnson was invited to join the 1998 Presidential Election. BBC satire show “Have I Got News For You.” Teased there about some of the worst scandals of his early career, the panelists then cooled their attacks, treating Johnson as a fellow humorist. Johnson was considered a clown beyond the realm of politics from that point.

The figure of the clown is an enduring type, although there have been more of them in recent years — Silvio Berlusconi, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro. They tell their followers that every politician lies, and even that they lie. This is what these figures have in common. Thus, in admitting that truth, they make themselves the only “honest” people in the room.

Johnson’s popularity has not been diminished by previous scandals. The polls showed that the Conservatives were still ahead of the Liberal Democrats in November, as they have been since Johnson’s election. It is only since December that Labour has moved ahead — but now, 52 opinion pollsLabour is ahead of some other parties by as much as 10 percentage points.

Populist leaders, it seems, are allowed to lose anything — except their popularity. They can lose their popularity and their party will look for a new leader. And this is especially true of Johnson’s party.

British politics are very different from American politics. Our prime ministers are elected from within parliament, and not directly. It might seem that every leader has the opportunity to test his or her popularity at a general election. The Conservative Party has a long history of being able to removing leadersThey lose a defeat before they resign. Only one of the five previous Conservative prime ministers resigned after a defeat in general elections. After being refused support by their MPs, all four of the remaining prime ministers (Edward Heath Margaret Thatcher David Cameron and Theresa May), were forced to resign.

It is worth taking a moment to ask Boris Johnson why his COVID rules violations have caused him so much trouble. It is not because the public opposes partying by leaders. Johnson has been part our media culture for over 20 years. drunkWaving to university friends dead pheasantsAnd hanging from an Olympic zipwire. Johnson’s party setting used to be part of his charm.

The truth is that COVID has polarized society. Only a small but growing minority believe that the government has always chosen the right path. One very large group of voters believes that we should be doing much more, even now, to prevent the disease’s spread — that schools should send the sick home, and masks should be compulsory. Another large group of voters believes the opposite — that COVID has been exaggerated, that the deaths have been restricted to those who were always going to die.

Johnson has felt the most pain from the loss in the second group. It was evident when large crowds gathered to witness the world darts championship last month. chants broke out: “Stand Up If You Hate Boris.

Johnson may find a way out of his immediate crisis and will likely survive, as he has done so many times before. But should this crisis bring him down, a battle of interpretation will surely follow, with each group of Johnson’s critics struggling to show why he could no longer rule. On the left, we will try to show that Johnson’s arrogance was not a mere personal failing but a fault of the institutions in which he has thrived — our private schools, the right-wing press for which he wrote and writes. We will argue that Johnson was responsible for his blatant obstruction to health measures and contribution towards catastrophe.

However, a different argument can be found on the right. This argument states that Johnson did not do enough to prevent COVID. However, it is not Trump. His crime was that Johnson did not avert COVID. Too much.

The debate about what Boris Johnson did wrong brings together culture wars from the last decade and a controversy about how to best use the state. It has already begun. Whether Johnson survives or not, it is likely to shape British politics — and politics in many parts of the world — for many years to come.