Johnson hoping ‘Boris bounce’ lasts until election day

With the UK having one of the highest per capita death rates from the coronavirus pandemic and an economy hit harder than almost any G20 country, many had anticipated that Prime Minister Boris Johnson would be languishing in the polls. However, one of the current surprises of British politics is that support for him and his Conservative government remains resilient.

To be sure, some polls show that opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer has drawn level, and in some cases beating the Conservatives. However, Johnson’s governing party has been buoyed by the UK’s unexpectedly speedy vaccine roll-out, as shown by a YouGov poll released on Monday, with a very high 86 percent saying that the government has done a good job of getting jabs for the country.

This good news about vaccines has provided a morale boost for a country now well into its third national lockdown. And, politically, the government is hoping this bounce in the polls can last at least into spring. This is because, on May 6, there will be perhaps the most important set of devolved nation and local election polls in a generation. This will be the first big test for Johnson since his big general election victory in 2019.

The highlights of May’s ballots include Scotland, where the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) is hoping to win a majority in that nation’s legislature. A central feature of these Holyrood elections is a pitch from the SNP for a new independence referendum as soon as 2022, after the last one in 2014 failed. Wales also has important elections for its national parliament in Cardiff. And, in England, there are important mayoral ballots in key cities across the nation, including London, Manchester and Birmingham.

While Johnson and his government are now in a better political position because of the vaccine roll-out, he still has tough calls to make about the pandemic. The first of these will come next week, when he is due to announce the conclusions of his latest review into whether to ease restrictions in England.

One of the reasons why this is not an easy decision is the growing divisions within the Conservative Party on this issue. Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who reached the final two of the party’s leadership contest in 2019, argued this week for restrictions remaining in place for significantly longer because of new virus variants, including from South Africa and Brazil.

Hunt, currently chair of the House of Commons Health Select Committee, suggested driving down infection rates to fewer than 1,000 a day, enabling a South Korean-style approach of intensive contact tracing. A key challenge with this approach, however, is that the last time new infections were consistently below 1,000 in England was August.

While Hunt’s views are shared by many legislators in opposition parties, they are not the majority opinion within Conservatives. The main alternative to Hunt’s perspective was articulated this week by Mark Harper, who chairs the lockdown-skeptic COVID Recovery Group in Parliament. He said that restrictions must start to be eased no later than March 8, when the most vulnerable in the Top 4 priority groups are likely to have a high level of immunity from their initial vaccinations. He also asserted that it is “almost impossible” to justify keeping any form of lockdown being in place beyond May 6, given the most vulnerable will all have been vaccinated by then.

Given the significant divergence between these two views, it will be very hard for Johnson to satisfy everyone. So, despite the vaccine program’s apparent success, the pandemic continues to offer political hazards for the prime minister. This is especially so as, since the first lockdown began almost a year ago, Johnson’s political credibility and authority has been tested repeatedly, with increased doubts about whether he is up to the job. While the decisions he has made during the crisis have been very tough, with no easy answers available, his approach has too often been chaotic and incoherent.

This has added to the volatility of his premiership, with his risk-taking style of leadership leaving open the possibility that his term could yet end prematurely. Take the example of relations with the EU, where Johnson’s last-minute, Christmas Eve “hard Brexit” deal is already facing major challenges. It is estimated, for instance, that UK exports to the EU in January, the first month after the agreement came into effect, were down a staggering 68 percent year on year, which could presage major political problems to come.

So, as in 2020 with the pandemic, it remains possible that the prime minister’s high-risk approach to governing the country could backfire this year or beyond. Should this happen, he is facing a much more organized Labour Party than before, with some polls last year indicating Starmer is the most popular opposition leader since Tony Blair in the 1990s.

While Johnson’s hold on power appears stronger now than a few months ago, this may be deceptive. Even if he handles the pandemic more effectively from now on, Brexit and other issues could yet store up more problems for his premiership.

• Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.