The Fall of Boris Johnson: The Full Story

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After high-school football stars were accused of rape, online vigilantes demanded that justice be served.

Did Dowden quit to help ease Sunak’s path? He has vehemently denied it and Sunak allies insisted there was no ‘co-ordination’. But Johnson thought otherwise, even then. ‘Rishi will be next,’ Jake Berry, an MP loyal to Johnson, recalled telling the PM. ‘One hundred per cent. They’re working together on it,’ came the response, according to Berry. The downside of concentrating on the last few months of Johnson in office is that it minimises those qualities that propelled him into national politics and pulled off Brexit when the elite declared it impossible, making those who remained loyal to him to the bitter end look like fools. Yet Payne recently published another, very well received book on the Red Wall that adds vital context. Johnson was more than a man; he embodied a movement. Euroscepticism confounded its opponents because it managed to ally southern Thatcherites and northern socialists, and even if this confederacy seems bizarre on paper, it cohered through the personality of a witty patriot whose abiding concern was to make Britain feel better about itself. When I voted Conservative in 2019, it was more for Boris than for the Conservatives – and with his brand of populism out of the picture, I’m not sure I’ll do the same again.

Oxbridge politics in a changing world

During the countless internal debates about pandemic policy that followed, the pair were often of similar mind. But as the crisis eased with the mass rollout of vaccines in early to mid-2021, the focus turned to how to manage the post-pandemic economy. Johnson, with his populist instinct, was a big spender, having vowed to end austerity and seeing pound signs as the easy way out of many political binds. Sunak had a firmer ideological commitment to traditional low-spend, low-debt and ideally low-tax Tory economics, seeing fiscal prudence as the way forward.

Are the Tories better off since Johnson resigned? No. The economy is terrible; their polling is far worse; Labour’s victory seems all but guaranteed. Brexit is questioned again. We have gone from tax cuts, under Truss, to tax rises, under Rishi - and all without the consolations of good humour. Certainly the downfall was exceptional, a head-scratching collapse. Johnson had won the biggest Tory majority in the House of Commons since Margaret Thatcher in 1987. Then, in less than three years, he had gone from top dog to mincemeat. So, just how much blame can be laid at Sunak’s door for Johnson’s descent? And was more happening behind the scenes than the public knew? Payne’s thesis is that these one-off factors – the wrong Brexit policy, the wrong leader (and the charismatic appeal of Boris Johnson, who Gray believes is forging a new politics combining one-nation Toryism and old Labour values) – map on to a deeper problem that should have Labour deeply worried. Structural, economic and societal changes, he writes, have changed the makeup of constituencies such as North East Derbyshire and North West Durham. The old industrial way of life – steel, coal, ships and the rest – inculcated a sense of communal pride and mutual dependency. The Labour party was its political expression. But Payne suggests that this collectivist culture has been replaced in many areas by relatively prosperous commuter belts and more individualistic lifestyles and forms of work. The “Barratt Britain” of private housing estates and comfortable homeowners has crept up on the red wall, and superseded old loyalties in the postindustrial age. Significant parts of Labour’s lost England are becoming more middle-class and therefore more well-disposed to the Conservatives. “Many of the places that voted Conservative for the first time,” Payne writes, “are content, and the dystopian version of society painted by Labour in 2019 was sharply out of kilter with the world they know. This suburban lifestyle is where future elections will be fought.”

Entertaining...this is an essential book for anyone who seeks to understand [Johnson]. Gimson has a profound understanding of the character and urges of his subject... peppered with brilliant observations...A book that is elegant, wise and full of waspish delight...much to entertain, amuse and provoke thought.'

Sunak and his allies played a part in Johnson’s downfall, but that should not be mistaken for swallowing the narrative – pushed by Team Boris – that his premiership only ended because of Sunak The Fall of Boris Johnson is the explosive inside account of how a prime minister lost his hold on power. From Sebastian Payne, former Financial Times Whitehall editor and author of Broken Heartlands.His limited interest in Parliament, while not uncommon for prime ministers, could be an issue too. He had a massive majority in the Commons, but not in the House of Lords. ‘Can’t you just bosh this on?’ an exasperated Johnson would ask Lords Leader Baroness Evans as legislation stalled there. ‘That’s not how it works,’ she would reply. Payne's account reads well but it tells us nothing followers of the story did not already know. Indeed it is more "revelatory" about the workings of the Westminster lobby than of its subject. There are, however, three stories grounded in fact that are worth retelling when it comes to the question of Sunak, his allies and their role in Johnson’s fall. One involved a man known to almost nobody outside Westminster: Dougie Smith. The Scot had been a constant feature behind the scenes in the long Tory run in government since 2010, variously described in press cuttings as a political fixer and a modern-day Machiavelli. Boris grew to rely on Smith to sort out political problems, according to Number 10 insiders. But Smith was also close to Sunak. He had helped Sunak get selected as the Tory candidate for Richmond (Yorks) for the 2015 election. A Sunak ally said Smith had been ‘continually supportive’ and was ‘definitely a friend’. Which makes what followed so intriguing. An entertaining description of the politically chaotic times the UK found itself in during 2022. The reader gains an insight into Boris’s mindset and approach - whether you agree with him and his followers or not, it’s an essential read to try and understand just how much we have moved away from the traditional political practices of the past.

Connected to this is the notion that Johnson 'got the big calls right'. He constantly repeated this phrase, but did anyone actually buy it? His government had done well on the vaccine rollout and on responding to the Ukraine war, but (especially with the vaccines) it was pretty clear what needed to be done, and it was implementation that mattered rather than decision-making. But to put his downfall down solely to an ‘ouster’, or rebels who played a part during the slide, would be remiss. For that narrative ignores the critical wider reality. The reason Johnson lost his premiership was not Sunak; it was not Sunak who had allowed a culture of Covid law-breaking to develop in Downing Street, with some 126 fines being issued to 83 people over at least eight events. It was not Sunak who rolled out blanket public denials that would be proved palpably false. Yet it was Sunak, with Javid, who triggered the end. What brought him down within six silly months? “The three Ps”. Owen Paterson, who Boris unwisely tried to protect in wake of a lobbying scandal; Partygate, which he brazened through and almost survived; and Chris Pincher, the whip whose wandering hands goosed a government.

Red-meat politics

The Johnson years highlight the important difference between a popular government and a government making meaningful difference to its people. Too often, attention-grabbing “red-meat” solutions have been proffered in response to intractable challenges. Flying refugees to Rwanda or declaring Brexit “done” may have made for ephemerally forceful headlines and opinion poll effects, but they are typically merely symbolic and often dangerously counter-productive. An interesting explanation for Johnson’s popularity with the Conservative party’s grassroots – those 170,000 mostly elderly people who nowadays elect our leaders – is that Johnson brought them “freedom from the reign of virtue”. They were “grateful” for the “frivolous” and the “fantastical” or, as Gimson once ventured to me on the radio, they “ wanted to be lied to”. In this strange world, virtue and the virtuous lurk as constant enemies, and any notion of public life as a bastion of morality is dismissed as dull and “goody-goody”, or even sadistic. Where once swivel-eyed schoolmasters beat their pupils to feel virtuous, Gimson recalls, perhaps from his own experience, now “such punitive urges” can be indulged by denouncing Johnson. A tough read as it was horrible to relieve all the chaos and naked self-Interest. Let’s hope never again to we have such a shambles of a Government. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were not always rivals. Quite the reverse. For much of his premiership Johnson saw their relationship as one of ‘mentor’ and ‘mentee’, according to one Boris aide. Another said he grew to view Sunak as his natural successor. In meetings with senior journalists the Prime Minister would gush over his Chancellor’s brilliance. Johnson even told others Murdoch intervened to urge Sunak not to quit, saying the media tycoon had personally told him as much.