On the morning of the 2019 Election, Boris Johnson was portrayed as a Churchillian stalwart of One Nation Conservatism, plastered on the cover of every right-wing media outlet as he reached an 80-seat Tory majority. His popular appeal was amplified by his stance on “Get Brexit Done” which toppled the 47 seat “Red Wall” of Northern England. In the lead up to the election and the Tory leadership contest, his blundering and bombastic persona somehow enhanced his public appeal and he remained popular again. With an air of Trumpian protest, the British public elected a personality, with a sizeable 43.6% of the vote, rather than a competent leader with inspiring policy. It has only been recently that the British public has begun to truly wake up to his incompetence and his government’s exacerbation of living conditions, with Starmer’s current lead in the poll’s indicative of such.
The political strategy of his campaign centred entirely around his comic appeal. Elected leader on 66% of the conservative leadership vote, Johnson was perceived as an invigorating alternative to the grey bureaucracy of the “May-bot” and Jeremy Hunt. This was seen with Johnson’s meetings with former Trump adviser, Steve Bannon (according to Buzzfeed), seeking to emulate the attraction of eccentricity over policy. This was furthered in the informal campaign slogan of “Back Boris” with the frequently informal use of Johnson’s first name and his ruffled hair fuelling his sense of eccentricity. This exploited the years of personality status Johnson had built up prior to this. Johnson had served as a controversial journalist for the Times, rugby tackled people during football charity matches, held up two British flags whilst suspended on a zip-wire, appeared frequently on Have I Got News For You, become the London Mayor and had many peculiar outbursts in debate (such as during the London Assembly with the insult 'great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies'). As a result of this “Boris” has become the subject of several social media pages, helping to trivialise him as a comic character rather than the corrupt danger to living standards he has become. The public was far too easily deceived by Johnson’s populist and bombastic persona.
Johnson has postured as a friend of many ordinary working people, delivering on Brexit and appearing more one-nation in his approach to the Covid pandemic. Johnson’s corporate tax rises under Sunak’s budget (from 19 to 22%), his provision of £330 billion for the NHS and the furlough scheme all seemed pragmatic one-nation “changes to conserve”. However, these were measures that had to be enforced following the convulsions of the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic and were still insufficient. Even during this crisis, which was faced with larger public spending, many ordinary working people were still neglected (as seen with the strain upon the underfunded NHS that led to horrific stories of nurses choosing between who to give ventilators to). Whilst Johnson campaigned with soundbites such as “protect the NHS” he shifted the blame of its failings on to the public (in a typically atomistic and neo-liberal way) rather than his own government. Successive conservative governments have bled the NHS of resources with crippling austerity measures and the privatisation of certain sectors. It is under Johnson’s government that the morale of nurses has dropped to record lows with a third of NHS nurses thinking about leaving within the next year (according to the Times as of 2021) whilst Johnson’s meagre compensation was an insulting 3% pay rise offered (rejecting the 15% demanded by unions) and a clap every Thursday. Furthermore, Johnson had promised that his Brexit deal would increase NHS funding by £350m per week in September 2017, when this has since been proven to be blatant misinformation. Whilst the pandemic would understandably create some strain upon the NHS and its personnel, it could have been much better funded with redistributive taxation and a more efficient and fully nationalised service. The vaccine rollout has been notably successful with around 70% receiving both jabs. Despite being Johnson’s greatest success, this was in reality due to the industriousness of the NHS workers under immense stress and poor conditions. As the NHS was on its knees during the height of the pandemic, the conservative party protected the vested interests of the elite.
“Tory sleaze” has served as a fitting example of the neglect of public welfare in Johnson’s government. It emerged during the reports of COVID contracts cronyism, with the high court ruling that the billions given by Hancock to private individuals were “unlawful” in 2021. The wallpaper scandal stoked the raging row over corruption further, with Johnson using taxpayers’ money, as well as an alleged £58,000 donation by Lord Brownlow, to fund the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat (including the installment of high-end expensive gold wallpaper). Johnson has since been found guilty of lying during the Electoral Commission investigation (which also unearthed the £112,549 sum of the refurbishment). This in itself was symbolic of a government detached from ordinary working people. The row resurfaced again with the Owen Patterson scandal, in which Johnson and fellow MPs attempted to avert Patterson’s suspension with a whipped vote in parliament. He narrowly avoided defeat over this until the media scrutiny forced one of Johnson’s 20 U-turns. This entire scandal further shed light on a party for the wealthiest.
Knee deep in broken promises and corruption, Johnson has worsened the situation for ordinary working people despite his platitudes of “levelling up” and “doing more for working people than any Labour government” (as he claimed on the 24th of November PMQs). The social care bill of November notably increased the strain with an unjust and punitive tax on those with less than £100,000 in assets paying 86% of that sum for social care. In addition to this, the insulting 3% pay rise offered to nurses was both outstripped by the 4% inflation rate and completely dismissed the rest of the public sector who are also experiencing a downturn in real wages. Furthermore, the National Insurance contribution hike of a further 2.5% has placed even greater strain on ordinary working people whilst the wealthiest continue to pay the paltry 45% income set by Thatcher. By contrast, an 80% income tax for the wealthiest allowed the most productive economic period of American history (as Thomas Piketty has pointed out). Amazon, alongside many other multinational corporations, has been allowed to exploit tax loopholes rather than clamped down upon so that the public sector can be funded (with the NHS on its knees during COVID). According to Ethical Consumer, Amazon’s tax avoidance cost the UK £52 million in 2017 alone (often declared in offshore tax havens). Even more embarrassingly, the poorest have been hardest hit by Johnson’s Brexit deal and the ensuing shortages over fuel and food and the increased inflation. Students have also been further hit by conservative government policy, from the lowering of the contribution cap to the payment of astronomical tuition fees during a period of virtual “Zoom” lectures (at the cost of around £9,250 per year). Benefits have also been progressively slashed, with universal credit still retained, the inadequacy of Johnson’s reluctant free school meals scheme and the end of the £20 weekly support. This is a government that would rather make cuts for ordinary people than increase the rate of income tax on the wealthiest. Even Burke and Disraeli would be turning in their graves. Johnson does not care about the condition of the poorest in society as long as he is elected. Johnson is not a one-nation conservative in the mould of MacMillan or even Churchill, he is a shameless neo-liberal who poses as a friend of the people.
Ultimately, this is what people get for voting for personality over policy. Polls should not be fluctuating so suddenly in realising this (with Starmer 9% ahead in the latest Observer UK poll of Nov 2021). Working-class voters cannot be shocked when they elect a Conservative government that worsens their own living standards. The Conservative Party are a party of the wealthy, whether that is for their corrupt donors, the super-rich or the privately educated. The success of conservative governments is the sign of a fickle and easily controlled electorate. Many floater voters failed to see through the media smear campaign of the Labour Party and failed to see the deceit of Johnson’s Conservatives. It was clear from the start that the promises of “levelling up” and a beneficial Brexit deal would result in incompetence and lies. Johnson is not just a scandalous individual, he is part of a scandalous party that seek to privatise public services, compress working conditions, suppress opportunity for the poorest and make allowances for the wealthiest.
More frustratingly unless Johnson is brought down with a vote of no confidence, his incompetence will go unpunished with his majority of 79 seats. The nature of First-Past-The-Post gave the 43% who voted Conservative a crushing mandate over the future of the UK. Even Johnson’s social care bill, which challenged the conservative values of property, passed through. Therefore it is crucial that the electorate learns from these last 18 months instead of quickly being deceived by the manipulation of media tycoons. Whilst the damage has been done, for now, there is a simple solution for working people: vote against the Conservatives.