Where does the North Shropshire by-election leave Boris Johnson?

This week saw a double referendum on Johnson among the public and his MPs – and he lost both, writes Andrew Grice

‘Johnson is in a lonely place this Christmas’ (PA Wire)

Where does the Liberal Democrats’ spectacular victory in the North Shropshire by-election leave Boris Johnson? Clinging on, with a high risk of being in office but not in power – rejected by 100 Tory MPs, and now by voters.

That is every prime minister’s nightmare. It happened to John Major after “black Wednesday” and Theresa May after she threw away her Commons majority in an unnecessary election. A prime minister in this position still enjoys the appearance of power, but it is an illusion: the whole system, including parliament and the civil service, knows it is only a matter of time before they formally depart.

By-elections come and go, but it is very hard for Johnson to dismiss this one as a bout of the mid-term blues. For many Tory MPs, it was bad enough that he unwittingly triggered it by his foolish attempt to save Owen Paterson, the disgraced former MP who resigned.

Yet senior Tories admit privately the “sleaze factor” did not in itself cause the humiliation in North Shropshire; the crucial damage was done by the revelations of Downing Street parties just before last Christmas.

This week saw a double referendum on Johnson among the public and his MPs – and he lost both. He has alienated the influential leaders of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs; all six of its executive committee voted against vaccine passports. Tory insiders say it was no coincidence that Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, one member, was the first Tory after the vote to raise the prospect of a vote of confidence in Johnson as party leader.

The PM cooked his own goose when No 10 tried to replace Graham Brady as the committee’s chair with loyalist Heather Wheeler, but Brady beat her in an election among Tory MPs in July. The “Brady bunch” have now taken their revenge. Johnson will need to urgently rebuild his broken bridges with them in the new year.

Johnson is in a lonely place this Christmas. The 80 Tory MPs in constituencies where the Lib Dems came second at the 2019 election will feel very uncomfortable this weekend. So will the “red wall” Tories who needed his stardust to win their seats in 2019 but now fear it is gone. He has made enemies of two other Tory tribes: the One Nation group (who thought he was “one of us” as London mayor) over his hard Brexit; and his fellow Brexiteers over Covid restrictions.

The new year will inevitably bring a relaunch that Johnson will deny is one; all politicians hate the r-word because it reveals they are in trouble. He will probably give an interview to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show without Andrew Marr, insisting he is “getting on with the job” and focusing on the booster campaign (the only thing his party can agree on at present).

Yet his response to the Omicron variant will continue to be hampered by his noisy backbenchers.

The big event in the government’s diary for January is an overdue white paper on “levelling up”. In theory, an opportunity to reset his premiership around his flagship policy. In practice, a tall order since the Treasury has not yet provided any new money, and “levelling up” means so many different things that it amounts to nothing.

Johnson’s biggest fear will be that his non-relaunch is greeted with a shrug of the shoulders by voters, his MPs and the media. He would then have to limp on as the whole world discusses how long he will last.

I suspect his premiership won’t end quickly. The most likely scenario is for another six months, until the local authority elections next May, which might well deliver the final blow.

Potential successors, including the chancellor Rishi Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss, are quietly wooing Tory MPs; there will be more dishes with Rishi and fizz with Liz in the new year. They are already playing to the gallery: Sunak’s allies are letting it be known he was reluctant to move to Covid plan B.

This will further weaken Johnson’s authority. But Sunak and Truss will be in no hurry. Although they each hold a great office of state, they are relatively inexperienced and so will want to shine in the current posts, showing the very “grip” his MPs demand from Johnson.

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Sunak and Truss know it will be very hard for him to do that in the first half of 2022. Indeed, it would be difficult for any PM faced with Covid, a further rise in NHS waiting lists, inflation at 6 per cent, tax and council tax increases in April, a huge rise in energy prices. That’s before unforeseen events.

As one Tory MP told me: “It’s not in anyone’s interests for it to end quickly. The next six months are going to be hellish. Much better to let Boris die slowly and take the blame for the mess.”

Such calculations are very ominous for Johnson. The dark clouds hanging over him may never lift now.