What will Boris Johnson’s U-turn mean for his reputation?

History shows a sharp change of course could harm the prime minister, despite his reputation for flip-flopping, writes Sean O’Grady

Boris Johnson told the Commons it would not be possible to change course on the NHS surcharge, shortly before doing just that (Reuters)

The one thing, for good or ill, about having a populist for a prime minister – some say a shameless one – is that policy U-turns can be executed with remarkable speed. No sooner, hardly, had Boris Johnson stood up in the “hybrid” Commons chamber to regretfully inform Keir Starmer that it would not be possible to cancel the NHS surcharge for low paid foreign NHS and care workers, than the whole policy was scrapped.

Sir Keir seized on it as a victory for “common decency”, though many also praised it as an early win for his leadership. In truth, it might have been better for Labour, in raw party political terms, if Mr Johnson had dug his heels in, such was the unpopularity of the policy even among Conservative supporters. But populism isn’t about defying your base, those you rely on for a political livelihood. It’s a net win for Mr Johnson (maybe not so much for Priti Patel).

The lesson of history is that the political U-turn is a pretty routine affair, and usually does no lasting damage. That is, provided that the policy being reversed satisfies certain criteria: it’s not very important or costly in itself; it’s marginal to a government’s programme; it’s deeply unpopular anyway; it won’t make anyone confused about the political “brand”. The latest Johnson reversal ticks all of those boxes, as do some of his previous spectacular reverses, such as putting an economic border down the Irish Sea (which he told the Democratic Unionist Party and the European Research Group no British premier could ever do), or when he asked the EU for a Brexit extension (he did not die in a ditch and quit), and the cancelled prorogation of parliament (although this was forced upon him).

Given that the coronavirus crisis has torn up the entire strategy for the public finances and the economy, we may reasonably expect many more U-turns on the 2019 election-winning manifesto: it looks less relevant now.

It might not matter much. Most U-turns that seemed “humiliating” at the time have had little lasting impact, and are mostly forgotten. Theresa May, for example, won’t be remembered for reversing her attitude to energy price caps or putting workers on the boards of British companies.

That’s because no one outside the Westminster bubble was ever much bothered about those. She will, though, be blamed for calling an early election in 2017, one she had spent months vehemently denying she wanted. Like Gordon Brown “bottling” an early election when he became prime minister in 2007, May’s vacillation spoke to a certain indecisiveness, a weakness of leadership on a “big call” that really was important.

The big U-turns on their respective elections set a tone, so that smaller U-turns for these two hard-working, conscientious but unlucky “fag end” premiers, following more glam predecessors, then began to form an unhelpful “chaotic” narrative. This was violently at odds with the strong and stable Thatcheresque image they both sought to project, the contrast with the slick PR types, Tony Blair and David Cameron.

By contrast, no one expects Mr Johnson to stick to his guns and show loyalty to anyone or anything. Consistency is not in the Johnson DNA. Like his predecessor and hero Winston Churchill, Mr Johnson is able to change his mind as often as he changes his socks, and people don’t seem to mind.

The Margaret Thatcher lesson is that defiance and resolution in executing the central purpose of your mission does matter. You don’t U-turn on that. It was she who thus fetishised and demonised the U-turn in a famous passage of her speech to the Conservative conference in 1980. Under increased pressure to change her economic policy, which we’d now label “austerity”, she offered these words: “To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the ‘U-turn’, I have only one thing to say. ‘You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.’ I say that not only to you, but to our friends overseas – and also to those who are not our friends.”

Although Thatcher was astute enough to know when to make a tactical withdrawal and made plenty of smallish U-turns, and secretly negotiated with the IRA terrorists she said she’d have no truck with, she was still perceived as delivering on her principal economic project, Thatcherism. That rejection of the U-turn on cuts, union bashing and privatisation became part of her own “brand” of strong leadership. In time, it would become seen as a weakness – arrogant, imperious, stubborn, out of touch, “off her trolley”, but it served the Conservatives well for a decade.

Other prime ministers, by contrast, saw their reputations for competence destroyed when they had to abandon their big plans for the economy – always central to election – in a series of U-turns. Thatcher herself had sat in the cabinet of the king of the U-turn, Ted Heath, who abandoned virtually everything he’d been elected in 1970 to do to revive the economy, giving in to the unions, inflating the currency and propping up “lame duck” companies.

In the 1960s and 1990s respectively, Harold Wilson and John Major were finished when they had to admit defeat and devalue the pound, something they had previously said would be some sort of catastrophic betrayal. Had they not made sterling such a totem, and their supposed gritty determination part of their political personality, then their subsequent embarrassment would have been correspondingly smaller.

If, like Tony Blair, you’re smart enough to avoid committing to any given policy and the economy is going fine, you can get away with a great deal of chopping and changing and playing it by ear – which is why he enjoyed unprecedented popularity and won two landslide elections before the Iraq war eventually caught up with him. Once done, that was something he could not U-turn out of even if he’d wanted to, and he has of course never apologised for the actual decisions he took.

Will there be more U-turns under Mr Johnson? Certainly, given post-Covid financial constraints. He will be forced to alter his expensive plans for “levelling up” the regions, and may find it impossible not to raise taxes, cut spending and borrow more. That would all be damaging enough, for a populist leading what they like to call “the people’s government”. Still more telling, though, would be a failure to deliver a Brexit deal that actually lives up the expectations of future prosperity that have been pinned on its success.

Crashing out of the transition period on 31 December would be a bold, principled move, central to his Brexiteer credentials, and one that honours frequently stated sacred pledges enshrined in law – but might well tip an economy in recession into a slump. Mr Johnson might even now be considering another U-turn. That will prove a much trickier manoeuvre.