Politics Explained: Why Boris Johnson may not be doomed

The case for thinking that the prime minister will survive and thrive

Although poll ratings for the government have re-entered negative territory, Johnson himself still enjoys positive support (AP)

Public opinion is turning against the prime minister. Even before the revelation that his chief adviser broke lockdown rules, more people disapproved of the government’s handling of the coronavirus situation than approved, according to Opinium and YouGov.

It is easy to imagine how the public could become more hostile if the UK ends up with one of the worst death tolls in the world, and if the economy fails to recover quickly from the shutdown.

Boris Johnson’s critics accuse him of being so afraid of scrutiny that he hides away, while the Labour opposition, transformed under the leadership of Keir Starmer, has him on the run, having forced him to make a U-turn on the immigration surcharge for NHS workers.

Here, though, is the case for thinking that the prime minister will survive and thrive. He is still popular, much more so than is normal for politicians. As Matt Chorley of The Times commented, “His enemies hating him more is not the same as more people hating him.”

Although poll ratings for the government as a whole have re-entered negative territory, Johnson himself still enjoys positive support. In most polls, he remains more popular than Starmer.

There was a “rally to the flag” effect in most countries, as emergency measures against coronavirus were taken (Donald Trump is one of the few national leaders not to have enjoyed a big boost in personal popularity during the crisis). In Britain, as in most other countries, that effect has been wearing off for some weeks, but Johnson and the Conservative government remain more popular now than they were at the time of the election.

Johnson ordering a U-turn on the immigration surcharge is a sign of resilience rather than weakness. It means the government responds to democratic pressure. It would have been better, of course, if Johnson had made the change before Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday rather than the next day – that really would have shown he was hungry for power and unwilling to suffer even a day’s embarrassment. But it was better to reverse the position before serious damage was done rather than dig in and make matters worse, as he is now discovering by defending Dominic Cummings.

As for hiding away, Johnson is no camera-hanger like Tony Blair and David Cameron, always wanting to do a clip for the news to make it look like they were in charge, and, unlike Theresa May, he is not forced by Speaker Bercow to stand up in the Commons for three hours at a stretch, answering every question from every backbencher who likes the sound of their own voice (which is nearly all of them).

But he has agreed to do an hour and a half in front of senior MPs – the chairs of select committees – on Wednesday.

His immediate problem is getting over the public’s feeling that there is one rule for Cummings and another for everyone else. But either Cummings will go, or if he doesn’t, the indignation will probably subside eventually.

In the longer term, there are three big questions: Will most people conclude the handling of the outbreak has been a disaster and Johnson is to blame? Will the economy be in reasonable shape by 2024? Will something else happen to bring him down? No one knows the answer to those questions, and it must be said that things looked pretty difficult for him when he became prime minister last year and it seemed parliament would block Brexit. He may have a better chance of long-term survival than some people think.