In the end, the survival instincts of his political party trumped Boris Johnson’s determination to survive. This is good news. Yet he has still been an immensely significant political leader, albeit a disastrous one. He has shifted the debate on core issues from solutions to symbols. This is true, above all, of Brexit, his enduring legacy. Johnson’s insistence on the trappings of sovereignty delivered almost the hardest possible Brexit. If the threat to break the Northern Ireland protocol survives him, as it might, yet worse could ensue.
Brexit is not the most important challenge confronting British policymakers. What is most important is simple to describe and hard to solve. This is the longer-term stagnation in productivity and real incomes. If the country cannot solve this, it is unlikely to solve much that matters. Even the current cost of living crisis is so bad because of the dreadful longer-term performance.
As the Resolution Foundation notes in its latest Living Standards Audit, the 15 years between 2004 and 2019 — pre-Covid and pre-Brexit — were the weakest for growth in gross domestic product per head since the years between 1919 and 1934. Low growth in GDP per head caused low growth in household real disposable incomes: those for non-pensioners rose by 12 per cent between 2004-05 and 2019-20. This can be compared to an average rise of 40 per cent every 15 years since 1961.