Nothing could have prepared British politics for the train wreck that was Boris Johnson

The fall of the prime minister contains all the ingredients of past downfalls, but in stronger strengths and mixed at warp speed

Nothing became Boris Johnson more than the manner of his leaving. His speech was graceless, bombastic, boastful, contained a few untruths, lacked any sense of responsibility, still less contrition, tie not quite straight, and hair artfully arranged to try and conceal male pattern baldness.

In the final hours, with his opponents closing in on him – including reality, his most despised enemy – his instinct was for survival, at any cost to the party, the constitution, the monarchy and the country.

Arguably, he has achieved that in part with his dodgy caretaker government – in which he retains all the powers and royal prerogatives he enjoyed before. He has bought a little time. It’s not inconceivable that some crisis might emerge or might be engineered that would give him the chance to delay or reverse his ousting – a war, multiple strikes and civil unrest, another Covid wave and lockdowns, or all three.

The jokey and cuddly blond-mopped mask slipped, and his nasty nature could be glimpsed through Twitter rumour and the informed speculations of broadcast journalists. Even if he did not mean it, and he might well have toyed with it, a Gotterdammerung ending, with blood on those expensively wallpapered walls and corpses littering the floor would have inflicted yet more harm on the nation. If not finally restrained, Johnson might have called an early general election with all the chaos that would have ensued, albeit with a probably satisfactory result.

No prime minister has gone to the country on such weak grounds in the history of the UK. They may do so at an electorally favourable moment, or when forced by parliamentary arithmetic, but never in defiance of their own party. Occasionally they have done so to win a fresh mandate for a radical change in policy. The last to come near that was David Lloyd George in the post-war election of 1918. He basically teamed up with the Conservatives, splitting the old Liberal party and ending up with a kind of personal party in the process. It was conceivable that Johnson might have split the Tories in the same sort of way, had he made a dash to the Palace, requested a dissolution and the Queen had granted it. It was too crazy in the end, though.

Shadowy premonitions

You look back in history and all you can find are vague, shadowy premonitions of the events of the past few days.

Take the 50-plus ministerial resignations. The last time that happened on such a scale was in 1932, in vastly different circumstances, when the then National Government, post-election, was implementing protectionism and purging itself of its free-trade members, mostly Liberals. A closer parallel would be the waves of relatively minor ministerial resignations that hastened the departure of Tony Blair in 2007, and, on a slower timetable, the collapse of Theresa May’s authority in 2018/2019 (including her foreign secretary, Boris Johnson).

But having a government where entire ministries were left unmanned has never happened before. The only other example of this kind of phenomenon was the mass resignation from Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet in 2016, but Corbyn was glad to promote loyal supporters from the backbenches, and of course it made no difference to the governance of the country.

Or take the attempts to carry on when your MPs have clearly had enough of you. It has happened before, but again not on this scale. Plenty of prime ministers and leaders attempt to outlive their usefulness and outstay their welcome. Johnson’s hero, Winston Churchill, did in the early 1950s when, unbelievably, he celebrated his 80th birthday in Downing Street, and had to be very gently coaxed from power in the ensuing months when he showed no urgency about retirement.

Theresa May and John Major, like Johnson, survived a vote of no confidence (formally and informally), and by a greater margin than Johnson. Their departures took longer to come to pass, but it felt just as inevitable, whether by the party or the electorate. Margaret Thatcher and Ted Heath (in opposition) left, grumpily, after they’d lost leadership elections, and in Thatcher’s case, the cabinet. They resented it and nursed grievances, but they did comply in a way Johnson tried not to.

Other Tory leaders have also been distracted and derailed by “sleaze”. Harold Macmillan’s government was rocked by the Profumo scandal and various other lurid sexual and spying imbroglios. Poor old SuperMac, as he was once called, was soon ridiculed for being hopelessly out of touch, and his party suffered for it. He resigned while he was in hospital during the 1963 Conservative conference, turning that usually sedate gathering into something like a three-ring circus as his successors jostled for favour. Sleaze also damned John Major in the 1990s, during the various “back to basics” transgressions, a sexual auto-asphyxiation, Iraq Supergun, and the cash-for-questions scandals. Indeed every government and party has its dodgy MPs and corrupt ministers; the difference now is the fact that Johnson himself was embroiled and arguably inspired law-breaking and libertine behaviour.

The Brexit background

The bigger background theme to the current crisis, the thing that has caused so much difficulty, is the Tory split on Europe, something that has confounded and divided them more or less continuously since the early 1960s. From Macmillan to David Cameron, Theresa May and indeed Johnson, Britain’s relationship with the European project hasn’t stayed resolved for long, and has played a role in the demise of every one of its leaders except Alec Douglas-Home. The Euro-saga isn’t over even now. It is evidently not settled, as Johnson claims.

Without Brexit, Johnson might not be leaving prematurely. The cost of living crisis would be less severe because inflation would be lower, because the pound would not have depreciated. Employers would be able to find the staff they need, wages pressures would not be so severe, and costs kept low. Public services would be better funded and have the people they need. We’d have the care workers and fruit pickers and lorry drivers we need. Manufacturers and retailers would be able to guarantee seamless supplies from Europe. Northern Ireland would be stable; Scotland less agitated. And so on.

Were the British not feeling such a sense of national malaise, partly provoked by the divisions, disappointments and costs of Brexit, then they might have put up with Johnson for longer. Leadership crises tend to coincide with economic slowdowns and voter disenchantment about their living standards or public services. Fix those and you can do as you wish as PM. Mess them up and the country and party lose patience.

Therefore, the great irony about Boris Johnson is that the very thing that propelled him into Downing Street – Brexit – has also helped ensure the failure of his government and propelled him out of No 10.

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A sulphurous brew of the worst elements

The fall of Boris Johnson is a heady cocktail. It contains all the ingredients seen in past downfalls, but in stronger strengths and mixed at warp speed. The by-election losses, the sleaze, the loss of confidence by his MPs and cabinet, the policy failures, the economic crises, the strikes, the splits over Europe, the sense of drift, the complacency, the bombast, the stubbornness and the vanity, the philandering, the petty corruption, the distaste for administration and dislike of hard work. And the lying – hardly unheard of in politics but recently deployed in absurd, industrial quantities.

Every prime minister, virtually, has been brought down by some combination of those elements. A few, such as Cameron, Anthony Eden or Neville Chamberlain accept failure, take the hints from their colleagues comparatively relatively and go quietly. A select, rare group retire at a moment of their choosing, in a warm glow, such as Stanley Baldwin and Harold Wilson (though their reputations suffered grievously later). All had their good and bad points, and all had their share of crises, and all eventually had to go: “Them’s the breaks”.

Yet only the fall of Johnson has created such a sulphurous brew with all of the worst elements of all the past traumas thrown together into a vat. It has given us all a terrible hangover of the kind that the PM, with his taste for Italian red wine, might be well familiar with. It would be nice to think we won’t go through all this again, but the chances are we will.