Good riddance to Boris Johnson

Never has a former prime minister been sanctioned by a committee of the House of Commons, resigned from the Commons before the sanction was published, attacked the members of the committee whose independence and objectivity he had previously commended and the next day signed with the Daily Mail to write a regular column – the contents of which most of us can predict.

There are a few stalwart Johnson groupies who claim their man has the been the victim of a witch hunt. Some like former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg are clearly astute, certainly successful in business and personally excellent company, and one wonders what on earth possesses him and those like him to follow a script that is so patently absurd. Johnson was found guilty by a committee of his fellow MPs, which it is worth noting had a Conservative majority, of having deliberately lied to the House of Commons and having compounded that offence by repeatedly denying having done so despite the evidence against him.

He will earn a footnote in history as arguably the worst-ever leader of his party

His offence was deemed more serious because he not only broke lockdown rules but was the person responsible for introducing them. As prime minister, the whole country is entitled to assume that whoever occupies that office is at heart decent and honest. The truth is that his entire administration was disorganised chaos from its first day to last. His cynical disregard for rules, first noted by his Eton house master, infected Downing Street itself and led to an administration that too often appeared to have assumed that the lockdown rules they imposed on the rest of us during Covid did not of course apply to them.

People who were denied being able to comfort dying relatives or mourn their passing discovered that No 10 was partying and that the prime minister was personally present. They were understandably furious and their anger has clearly not abated.

So, is this the end of Johnson? I hear some colleagues suggesting a scenario in which Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer wins the next election, Rishi Sunak resigns as leader of the Conservatives to be replaced by, say, rising star Kemi Badenoch (secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy) and after five difficult years, Labour looks vulnerable and Johnson is seen as the man whose supposed unique popular appeal is the obvious choice to sweep the party back to power. This is fantasy.

Demonstrably toxic

At the heart of all this is that the man who was credited with winning the majority in 2019 is now demonstrably toxic not only with voters who have never voted Tory but with a huge number who have. This is what some of those who argue for his restoration seem not to appreciate. For what it’s worth, given Johnson’s obvious ability to charm almost anyone he meets on the stump – for which he deserves credit – it’s true to say almost any Tory MP would have won in 2019 given traditional Labour voters’ visceral dislike of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the anger of the millions in the north who voted ‘leave’ in the 2016 EU referendum and who hated Starmer for turning Labour into the ‘remain’ and second-referendum party.

Johnson is now earning millions doing what he has always done best – writing and speaking. He has apparently bought a £3.8m house in Oxfordshire for cash. He can earn a third of a million for a single speech. He is not coming back to the House of Commons next year or any year. He will use his columns to undermine Sunak and the Conservative Party that so foolishly elected him in the first place.

He will earn a footnote in history as arguably the worst-ever leader of his party and certainly the most disloyal. I suspect he won’t care. But rather like his resignation honours, his legacy is not one any MP – let alone any prime minister – would ever be proud of.

Steve Norris is chairman of Soho Estates