Patrick O’Flynn’s regular look at the state of UK politics, written exclusively for Political Insight: January 2021:
Autumn did not go smoothly for Boris Johnson, with his handling of the coronavirus pandemic seeming to conform to a pattern of opposing extra lockdown measures, only to U-turn and back them very late in the day.
That infuriated both sides in an increasingly polarised Covid debate, with pro-lockdowners berating him for his tardiness and anti-lockdowners infuriated by him continually appearing to side with them before buckling under pressure.
The second national lockdown seems to have caused most ire and was the spark that convinced Nigel Farage that the time was right to get back into the game with plans to relaunch the Brexit Party as Reform UK (a proposed rebranding that is still awaiting approval from the consistently under-performing UK Electoral Commission).
Tory backbenchers and their constituents running small businesses were not amused by it either and the result was the formation of the economy-focused Covid Recovery Group by Mark Harper and Steve Baker, two senior Tory MPs.
But despite all the turbulence and bad news around coronavirus and the tensions around the endgame of Brexit negotiations, it was telling that Keir Starmer and Labour were unable to take a consistent opinion poll lead.
And while the onset of winter yielded more bad news on the Covid frontline, with infections, hospitalisations and deaths soaring again, two key developments suggested that the Prime Minister was on course to emerge from the months of crisis relatively unscathed.
The first was a series of breakthroughs on coronavirus vaccinations, putting Britain in the fast lane out of the public health calamity (though not before a third lockdown is endured). After underperforming on many aspects during the pandemic, the Government managed to get something big right by pre-ordering 100 million doses of the first two vaccines to be rolled out.
For once a favourable contrast could be drawn with the European mainland, where countries had gone with a common EU-wide approach to vaccines and been lumbered with an under-performing programme as a result.
The second development was, of course, the post-transition Brexit deal that Johnson struck with the EU on Christmas Eve. It far exceeded expectations, combining a zero tariff-zero quota trade deal with a genuine repatriation of UK sovereignty from EU institutions.
Johnson’s readiness to play hardball with the EU and refusal to fold, Theresa May-style, was an undoubted hit with pro-Leave voters and gave him a poll bounce with the latest Deltapoll UK recording a six-point Tory rise to 43 per cent and Labour flat on 38 per cent (field work conducted Dec 26-30). http://www.deltapoll.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Deltapoll-Mirror201230.pdf)
Starmer’s personal ratings started to slide – especially in the eyes of working class and leave voters – as picked up in the monthly YouGov tracker on his leadership: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-approval-rating
The idea of the Labour leader as a fence sitter and a slippery opportunist (aka “Captain Hindsight”) appeared to be starting to gain traction.
The combination of an EU trade deal and the UK vaccine advantage – the Government has already surpassed a million vaccinations and has announced a target of inoculating 13 million elderly and vulnerable citizens by the middle of February – leaves the country well placed for a strong economic bounce back in the spring.
So for all the difficulties Boris Johnson encountered towards the end of 2020 – and there were certainly whispers from senior colleagues about his alleged inability to take decisions – he showed sufficient resilience to get through them.
That may well be something that a broad swathe of the electorate – particularly his new “Blue Wall” working class voters – are ready to give him credit for.
Though 2021 begins with a third lockdown announced, following a by-now trademark Johnson U-turn, polling shows the move commands almost 80 per cent popular support. Some voters even appear to positively like the idea that Johnson does his best to avoid imposing such restrictions and only does so when he has run out of alternatives.
From my vantage point it very much looks like Starmer has just experienced a classic political false dawn. Yes, he continued to build up Labour poll ratings (from a low base) and to garner positive reviews from inside the Westminster bubble. But no, he could not break Johnson during a spell of terrible news for the PM. And the old year ended with the Labour leader struggling to articulate a future approach to European relations capable of uniting the party’s zealously pro-EU majority and the working class sceptics lost to the Tories in December 2019.
The result is that the basic facts of British political life have reasserted themselves: a commanding Conservative majority of around 80 in a parliament that has more than three years still to run.