The Brexit n Boris formula was a winner for the Tories. Now its falling apart – The Guardian

At last. For the first time since he became prime minister, Boris Johnson is paying a direct price for his actions. For two long years, he seemed to defy the laws of political gravity, somehow floating high in the sky when his conduct, whether his lies or his failures, should have seen him crash to the ground.

His mishandling of the first phase of the pandemic was so disastrous, he presided over both the highest death toll in Europe and the deepest economic slump in the G7. It was a record of both calamitous misjudgment and corruption, as contracts worth hundreds of millions were funnelled to those with friends in high Tory places. He appointed useless ministers, several of whom became mired in scandal. And yet Johnson remained aloft, riding the warm air currents of consistent leads in the opinion polls.

His admirers said he was a politician like no other, immune to the pressures that would bring down lesser mortals. That immunity fed a sense of impunity. But in the early hours of Friday morning, among the fields and farms of North Shropshire, Johnson fell to earth.

The Tories took a beating in this byelection, losing a seat they had held for the best part of two centuries. Only once before had they seen a bigger collapse of their vote to the Liberal Democrats (or its predecessor parties), and that was three decades ago. Talk to those involved, on all sides, and they agree that voters were driven chiefly by fury with the prime minister over the revelations of Downing Street partying when the rest of the country was locked down against a killer disease, and what one minister calls the general shitshow of this government.

This result, coupled with a now steady if not huge Labour poll lead, has Conservative MPs rattled. They are alarmed especially by the way the anti-Conservative voters of North Shropshire organised themselves, as Labour and Green supporters put aside their affiliations to vote for the candidate best placed to defeat the Tory. Tactical voting cost the Conservatives about 30 seats in 1997: if the next general election is close, and that pattern were repeated, it could make the difference between victory and defeat.

No less troubling for Conservative HQ is the prospect of Lib Dems revived: if Labour is to be in power, it needs the Lib Dems to do well, capturing Tory seats that are out of Labours reach. Little wonder twitchy Tory MPs are now debating how long they should give Johnson to get his act together: one more strike and hes out or let him stagger on to contest the local elections in May. He has, says Ruth Davidson, been put on warning by his MPs.

Of course, we should not get carried away. Its only one byelection, fought in deeply inhospitable conditions for the government asking voters to back them in a contest triggered by an MP resigning in disgrace. That said, its the specific contours of North Shropshire that should have Conservatives seriously worried. For they suggest that the formula that won the party its 80-seat majority in 2019 is disintegrating.

A core ingredient two years ago was Brexit. Johnsons promise to Get Brexit Done forged a new electoral coalition and seemed to presage a realignment of British politics, allowing the Tories to make inroads in historically hostile territory. That should have made North Shropshire doubly safe, not only as a Tory bastion since the Great Reform Act, but as a place where 60% voted leave. And yet the constituency spurned Johnson as vehemently as any remainer city.

To be clear, this was not a repudiation of Brexit though farmers in the constituency, like others across the country, are livid at post-Brexit free trade deals that will, among other things, dump cheap Australian beef into the UK market. Rather it means that exit from the EU no longer performs the function it once did, acting as the glorious, redemptive promise for which all other sins might be forgiven. In 2019, voters were ready to overlook any misgivings they might have had about the Tories including, in those red wall seats, the fact that they were Tories for the prospect of getting Brexit done. Now, even in the Conservative heartland and even among hardcore leavers, departure from the EU is not enough to wash away the sins of booze, nibbles and party games, or Patersons fat Randox contracts.

A second ingredient was Johnson himself, the famed Heineken politician. Except in North Shropshire he became the man who repelled the parts every other Tory leader used to reach. Thats a reverse Heineken.

Throughout his career, including as mayor of London, Johnsons trick, revered by his devotees as a superpower, was to appeal to voters who didnt much like Tories. Indeed, his appeal was tacitly predicated on an understanding that the Conservative party was a damaged brand. But the events of recent weeks have seen that trick unravel, with Johnson becoming the very embodiment of the same old Tories.

One Conservative frontbencher says the prime minister has confirmed the suspicion many voters always had: that when you peek behind the curtain, Tories are privileged, sneering elites who take the rest of us for fools. Once cherished for defying the Tory stereotype of stuffy formality, Johnson now incarnates a much more poisonous set of tropes: that Tories believe its one rule for them, one rule for everyone else; that they look out for themselves and their mates; that theyre pampered and spoilt, laughing at those who are less lucky. That grates on those who lent their votes to Johnson in 2019, believing he was not like the others. But it rankles too with traditional Tories, like those who voted on Thursday, who have, says that Tory MP, concluded that the prime minister is someone whose morals and character they dont like or respect.

None of this is going to get better soon for the Conservatives. There is discontent across the kingdom, with voters in the north angry that levelling up remains more rhetorical than real, voters in the blue wall south angry about ugly housing developments dumped in their backyards, and all of them hit by the rising cost of living, rising interest rates, rising taxes and the prospect of losing their homes to pay for social care.

For Labour, a couple of big questions now loom. First, can it rely on tactical voting to work as smoothly in a general election as it did in North Shropshire, or does it need to make currently unspoken alliances with Lib Dems and the Greens more explicit? Second, does it serve the party better to see the Tories remove the prime minister, or would a wounded, tainted Johnson be easier to beat? As dilemmas go, these are far more comfortable than the ones that have tended to afflict the party in recent years. Indeed, with a newly vigorous shadow cabinet, Labour can look to 2022 with rather more confidence than it has felt for most of the last decade. The Tories may yet defy the odds and even the fates but they can no longer defy gravity.

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The Brexit n Boris formula was a winner for the Tories. Now its falling apart - The Guardian