If it is something of a cliche that the Conservatives can be brutal in how they treat leaders who no longer feel like electoral assets, this is arguably all the more so for Boris Johnson, whose primary attraction for many of his MPs was his appeal to voters. If that has gone, he should be worried.
They key word is “if”. The Tories’ loss to the Liberal Democrats of North Shropshire – a seat they had held for all but two of the last 189 years – is an undeniable earthquake, but byelections have particular qualities, not least the greater ability for opposition support to coalesce around one party. They often do hold wider lessons for governments, though, even midterm ones that could expect to receive something of a kicking from the voters at the best of times. What will alarm Johnson’s aides are the many reports from North Shropshire of not just annoyance with the government but some fairly significant and personal distaste for the prime minister. This was a recurring theme of the last major byelection story, the Lib Dems’ overturning of a 16,000-strong Tory majority in Chesham and Amersham in June, but here at least some of this could be explained by a strain of liberal, internationalist Conservatism in the affluent commuter belt seat.
North Shropshire is very different: largely rural and strongly pro-Brexit. But here, too, voters complained about a sense of being taken for granted by the Tories, and also a feeling that Johnson was slippery, and not sufficiently serious. Some Conservative MPs will thus awake on Friday with two calculations in mind. Firstly, if their party can lose a seat which had a near-23,000 majority, what would such a swing mean for them? Also, if voters dislike the prime minister in both Chesham and Amersham, and North Shropshire, where exactly is he still popular? One consolation for Downing Street is that such mutinous thoughts will largely not be discussed with fellow MPs, as the political firebreak of the Commons Christmas recess has begun, closing what has been perhaps the most politically damaging week of Johnson’s career. It included a buildup of damning publicity over two rolling stories: a series of reports of allegedly lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street, Conservative HQ, and government departments; and the prospect of more revelations about how Johnson had the costly renovation of his official flat paid for. Amid all this, Johnson was leading the response to a huge wave of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, which required the rushing-in of his plan B suite of restrictions, including a return to home working, further mask use, and the introduction of mandatory Covid certificates to enter venues like nightclubs and football grounds. The latter plan was hugely unpopular among many Tory MPs, 99 of whom rebelled in a Commons vote on Tuesday, calling into question both Johnson’s authority and his ability to further tighten Covid rules if, as many public health experts predict, the Omicron wave worsens. Some Tories will note that the North Shropshire campaign was always going to be tricky for the government, given it was prompted by the resignation of the former environment secretary Owen Paterson, who had broken rules on paid lobbying. North Shropshire has been a safe Tory seat since its creation
But even this, many will feel, was a situation mishandled by Johnson and his advisers. Paterson only stepped down after Downing Street U-turned on an attempt to save him from punishment by trying to unilaterally rewrite the entire disciplinary system for MPs, sparking a mass of stories about lobbying and second jobs.
If, in contrast, Johnson had urged Paterson to quietly serve the 30-day suspension imposed as a punishment, that would all have ended this week, and the prime minister might have been going into Christmas in a happier position.