I n 2019, when Boris Johnson was elected for the role of Conservative Party leader, programmes were broadcast highlighting his rise from the infamous Bullingdon Club period through the Mayor of London era, leading up to the Brexit chaos where the hard-Brexiters’ lobbied behind him for the Tory supremo role as the moderate Thatcherite voices waned off. It was euphoric times for the Brexit camp, with slogans like ‘Get Brexit Done’ coined by Johnson & Co. that rang a bell to the fatalistic mob, who backed him to a landslide election victory on December 19. Then came the COVID lockdown, and we watched how the UK sleepwalked into a disaster. Numerous accounts of mismanagement and debauchery appeared throughout the period when the rest of the population struggled to stay afloat during a pandemic of a magnitude never experienced for over a century. We saw false promises about Brexit not being met and phoney strategic partnerships appearing with Mongolia and Rwanda whilst the door across the channel banged shut for UK businesses. All such misdemeanours ended in the PM being questioned by the police, and the chain reaction caused senior Tory leaders to rescind their support for Johnson. One fine day in 2022, amid the growing pressure from the public and opposition, as well as within his own Conservative Party, Johnson stepped down.

Further chaos ensued, and while the UK is teetering towards another economic meltdown, the next general election is just around the corner, and we are probably looking at a Conservative implosion. Quite aptly, leading up to that period, Channel 4 released their series regarding the Rise and Fall of Boris Johnson. Surely, the Partygate would spell an end to his colourful and controversial political career? 

Before looking into the chances of his return to mainstream politics, we need to understand his influence on the general public and political landscape. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the UK political system is driven by capital — businesses with a vested interest in government policies— and that capital influences the mainstream media. The disappearance of the broadsheet newspapers from the newsstands and a burgeoning readership of the sensationalist tabloids paints a grim picture in the political awareness of the general public. The education system harbours the deep-driven class divide and proliferates the selective ignorance of the crimes of the colonial past. It’s worth remembering that during the election debate around 2019, when the scandal broke out about Prince Andrew and his sexual abuses, Boris Johnson said that the institution (the monarchy) was beyond reproach. He was resonating with the millions of minds mainly living in England, who also found it difficult to believe; the same people, on the contrary, bayed for blood for the convicts of the Rochdale grooming rackets. To them, Andrew was a ‘being bit of a lad’, ‘didn’t have bad intentions’ and ‘why did the girl keep quiet for such a long time? Must be for money’. In a similar fashion, the Royal Family members have been associated with simple words or phrases: Queen – icon, Philip – funny, Charles – likeable, William – just like his dad, Harry – a bit of a lad, Kate – graceful, Megan – nasty. The royal family does not have a direct link to Boris Johnson, except that it will help us understand the psyche of the general English population that voted in droves for Johnson in 2019. Men and women alike support the lad culture and everything that comes with it — casual sexism, racial prejudices, xenophobic slur, aggression and micro-aggression, hatred for political correctness, rampant nationalism — everything is a fair game for a bit of banter. 

In the same vein, Boris Johnson was always seen as a funny guy who liked to fool around and was prone to making gaffes. This image, paired with his dishevelled looks and buffoonery, was etched into the minds of people in the UK right from the days of his role as the Mayor of London. Except that it was a persona he created himself, carefully, and to play into the minds of the large majority of the public who’d back him later on, during his Prime ministerial era. To the masses, he is Boris, known to them on first name terms, not Johnson, or Boris Johnson; as if he is their mate, the similar image another bigoted leader seems to portray — Nigel Farage, with the pint of lager permanently stuck to his hand. With this familiar persona, he carried on with his casual racism and xenophobic quips, and the crowd cheered on — it’s just Boris being Boris! There was no public outcry when he likened burqa-wearing Muslim women to ‘letterboxes‘ or black people in commonwealth states as ‘flag-weaving piccaninnies’. I happen to know someone who knew someone who worked in the PMO, and their impression of Johnson was that he was nothing like the person portrayed in the media.

On the contrary, he was a hard taskmaster, focused on the issues at hand. Needless to say, all those tasks have profited a handful of people, like the admirers who’d buy him £800 a roll worth of wallpaper, whilst the rest of the population sank into poverty. Nevertheless, it corroborated the fact that his apparently funny, careless, blunder-prone persona is carefully crafted to invoke a sense of familiarity to the masses, and it was successful. Casual racism, sexism, and xenophobia had been rife in the UK society before Johnson was around, but by endorsing them himself, he helped the problem get worse. If a high-profile career politician gets away with such things in front of the media stare, surely people can escape their familiar environment where the situation is more toxic. Boris Johnson is their modern-day Saint George, the Knights Templar. 

During COVID, his popularity dwindled, with his unwavering support for Dominic Cummins for a very long time, with the closed-door parties in Westminster whilst thousands of people struggled with their lives. The royalists saw a lonely queen mourning the death of her husband, and their loyalty was divided. Yet, many believe that he sailed the UK through the pandemic crisis, and it was his landmark success. The death count speaks volumes of his success, but to his supporters, he’s done everything he could do. So, when the coup came about in 2022 with several senior Tory members, including Rishi Sunak, resigned from their ministerial positions, it was clear that even a person of Johnson’s stature could not but look down the barrel for his PM career. He had gone one step too far with his nonchalance and was finally made to pay the price for toying with people’s lives and vulnerabilities. 

The period following his departure can only be described as utter or perfect chaos. The Conservative Party was divided into two camps, and following the coup, we had power-hungry MPs bidding for the role of the party leader, then a thoroughly incompetent Prime minister who only lasted a few weeks, to be replaced by a tax-dodging family. We had an energy crisis that saw families unable to keep themselves warm and inflation so high that we are slowly heading towards another market crash. The Conservative Party has realised that their time is up for at least the next five years. We have observed massive swings in council and parliamentary by-elections in ‘secure’ conservative areas. We can feel the winds of change, a possible Labour government, Tories in disarray, the spectre of Boris Johnson will soon be cast away, like all other terrible Conservative leaders, only to be remembered by their statues to piss on. Yet, something is amiss, and it makes me think we have not seen the end of him yet. Where is he hiding and what is going to be his next move? 

I am a big fan of the Harry Potter series — not because I believe in magic because I don’t — but because of how the series drew parallels to real-life events and vices. Harry Potter readers must remember how, when Voldemort killed Harry’s parents, his curse backfired, and he disappeared without a trace. He was at the Prime of his power, and he underestimated the power of magic, and within a split second, he was gone. Yet, he was never forgotten, neither by his followers nor by his enemies. The followers, although downcast, knew he would return one day. The sufferers are jubilant, yet cautious that nobody knew what happened to him, so we can’t say he’s genuinely defeated and gone. And as it happened, the dark marks kept getting stronger, and one day, with the help of his death-eater friends, he was back! Worse than before, and even though he eventually fell, it didn’t happen before many lives were lost. There are far too many uncanny similarities between this story and the saga about Johnson, which is why I drew a parallel between the two. Some might argue that this was far-fetched; One cannot compare Johnson to a character as evil as Voldemort. I agree with them; Voldemort is only an evil character in a book and film series; Johnson played with real people’s lives. He’s more evil than Voldemort by all counts. 

Yet, just like Voldemort’s return from oblivion, the signs for a Johnson resurgence are clear. For the Tories, Rishi Sunak is now a sacrificial lamb who would take the party down to its first loss in nearly 15 years. Needless to say, it will be all his fault, and there will be a new headhunt for the next leader. With the deep-rooted nepotism, the divides within the party are far too prominent, and each mainstream leader has their own gang of warriors; it’s evident who amongst the present senior leaders commands more supporters than anyone else. To most of them, Boris Johnson is the best political figure in recent times, and letting the coup take place, and his resignation was the worst blow to the Conservative Party. It was a momentous error, and ever since his resignation, amongst the circle of Tory sympathisers, especially the ones in the Brexit camp, there has been a growing urgency to bring back Boris Johnson to take the helm of the party, effectively in preparation for the 2029 general elections. There was a surprise comeback of David Cameron, which might thwart the efforts, but the general consensus is that they must bring ‘Boris’ back! 

And it’s not just the MPs; it’s a large number of myopic Tory voters who also think that despite his shenanigans, Boris Johnson has managed the country well during COVID lockdowns and the economy well. They live in their sheltered little lives, cocooned in their world of individual excellence, aka social rat race, their world view where the UK is still a significant global power, and Europe (read ‘west’) is the utopian land of peace and harmony that the foreigners – entered legally or illegally – are eager to destroy. They ignore the sufferings of the millions of people during the lockdowns, the death counts, and the telltale signs of the energy crisis as a result of the war in Ukraine; they ignore the complicity of Boris Johnson’s ties with Russian business tycoons. To them, the only source of the problem is the people arriving in dinghies, vegans, socialists, environmental activists asking the government to ban fossil fuels and people who call for strikes for better working conditions. It’s shambolic to say that this is not just the views of the Tory voters; a large number of the population, irrespective of their political bias, are following this bandwagon. To this population, Boris Johnson, despite his follies, was the harbinger of British dominance over EU dictatorship, except for the fact that it all went pear-shaped since the day the Brexit referendum took place. 

In short, the return of Johnson to the UK mainstream politics is not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when. One would guess this will definitely be within the next five years — between the GE this year and, at the latest, immediately after the next GE. It won’t be surprising if he announces his comeback after this year’s general elections, which the Tories are deemed to lose, and the result will create a power vacuum within the party. For someone shrewd like Boris Johnson, it would be the perfect time to pounce, and he’s undoubtedly able to rally support from within. However, with the tensions in Ukraine and Middle-East, he might bide his time and watch his adversaries within the party weaken, and how Sunak started the dissent against Johnson’s leadership, he would force a vote of no confidence in the Tory chief 2-3-4 years from now and put himself in the fray as the leadership candidate to rescue the party front another defeat. 

So, what would the return of Boris Johnson mean for the population? No matter which side of the cabinet he’d sit on, it would be unsettling and disturbing. In recent times, the Conservative Party wore a façade that they ‘also’ care for the other 99%; there was never a doubt, not even in the minds of people in the breadline, that Tories’ main agenda was to look after the interest of their shady donors, non-dom tax dodgers, the royals, the oligarchs. However, it’s only a front they want to put up due to the increased number of damning evidence that they have let down the working class and the poor of this country. Return of Johnson would mean the ‘also’ part of the population dropped from consideration, and they can carry on unashamed vilification of the public workers, minorities, and people on benefits. Admittedly, to cause actual harm to people’s lives, he will have to be in a position of power — to be the leader of the party and have the mandate on his side, either being the PM or holding an important portfolio under a Tory government. Considering the general longevity of a Labour rule is not very long with so many deluded or greedy people voting for the Tories, they will eventually come to power in a not-so-distant future where Boris Johnson would be an irrelevant name. Even if he takes over the leadership while in the opposition, it’ll still be damaging to the levelling up the social barriers. It’s worth remembering that under Johnson, all the right-wing parties came together — UKIP, Brexit Party (Now Reform UK), and Britain first. Clearly, they all see the threat from a liberal government, and under the guard of Johnson, that would never happen. He would carry on his casual way of dismissing any criticism of his government or his personal conduct, and the brass-necked attitude would percolate down to all his followers, his ‘death eaters’. They will be at the ready to mock and intimidate any voice of dissent, to brandish the English nationalism as the tool to weaken their adversaries, aptly aided by their loyal media outfits.

At this crossroads with a general election looming, the documentary about the fall of Boris Johnson evoked some thoughts and premonitions that it’s not ‘really’ the actual end of Johnson; it all sounded too conveniently arranged. Only time will tell if these predictions are along the right path, but one thing the people on the liberal and socialist spectrum must not do is write Boris Johnson off because, under the façade of the blabbering, unkempt persona, just like the character of Lord Voldemort, his deviousness knows no boundaries.