What led to Boris Johnson's rise and fall? What is his legacy?
A scant four years after scrambling to the top of the political pyramid, not only is Johnson out of the top job — his recent resignation as an MP in the long shadow of a Covid scandal means that he’s out of a job altogether.
Like an asteroid on steroids, Boris Johnson’s streak across the firmament of British politics was brief but spectacular. As the door (seemingly) closes on his political career, it’s time for a retrospective: What led to his rise and fall? What is his legacy? And is this the end of Boris?
Johnson himself memorably described his own outsider status: “I’m about as likely to become prime minister as to be reincarnated as an olive,” he said back in 2012. The quip was testament to the widespread feeling that, despite two (successful) terms as Conservative mayor of London, Boris was too erratic for the top job. But the remark also highlighted the way he disguised a ferocious ambition with humor and a tousling of his blond mop, leading many to underestimate him.
Against that background, Boris’s rise was a product of one thing: the body count of Brexit. At a late stage of the referendum campaign, Johnson came out in favor of the “Leave” campaign. Unlike then-prime minister David Cameron, who called the referendum assuming that the “Remain” side would romp home, Johnson read the political tea leaves accurately and became a Brexiteer figurehead while Cameron’s political career ended prematurely. It was Theresa May’s failure to deliver a Brexit deal as Cameron’s successor that killed her premiership in 2019, at which point Johnson’s election to “finish the job” was an inevitability.
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