Declining Popularity of Boris Johnson’s Government After the Revelations
According to a poll, the popularity of the UK government has dropped significantly over a fortnight; also, about half of the people in the country are demanding the resignation of the health secretary. The poll was conducted on 27 and 28 May among 2004 Britons.
The government’s credibility waned following the revelations made by Dominic Cummings, a former senior adviser to the prime minister. According to the Opinium study, the prime minister’s approval rating now stands at -6% – compared with +6% two weeks ago. This rate was still positive two weeks ago. According to the poll, the popularity of the Conservative Party fell by 2% to 42%, while that of the Labour Party increased by 5% to 36%. Sixty-six percent of those polled believe Cummings’s remarks at a Parliament hearing were true, and only 20% percent believe these were not true.
According to the poll, 44% of Britons believe that Matt Hancock, the UK health secretary, should resign, while 30% believe that he should stay in office. These revelations have made the public pessimistic about the prime minister.
British Public Opinion Believing Cummings Revelations
Opinium’s head of political polling, Adam Drummond, said of Cummings, who is known in the UK as the architect of Brexit, that although he is one of the least respected figures in the country, the public believes some of his claims against the Johnson government. Cummings, who was ousted last year, made a speech in Parliament exposing the government’s shortcomings in curbing Covid-19.
Cummings’ Revelations About Boris Johnson’s Failure to Quarantine
He described how a meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra Committee on 12 March had been disrupted by US President Donald Trump wanting to start a “bombing campaign” in Iraq. When we talked about security equipment at cabinet meetings, we were informed that it would not be available because it would take months, Cummings said. At the same time, we saw Trump sending the CIA to steal security equipment from others, he said. Johnson’s former adviser also said that British Health Secretary Matt Hancock had repeatedly lied about the state of the coronavirus outbreak and the government’s actions, and that he should have been fired for his poor performance.
Johnson Government Misconceptions About the Coronavirus
Cummings said in his revelations that the government’s perception of the coronavirus was very wrong and that Hancock was reading the instructions of American institutions. According to him, even Johnson, in order to build trust among the people and to instill the idea that Covid is like the flu, suggested that he be injected with the virus in front of television cameras.
Cummings’s Claims Rejected by the Government
Rejecting Cummings’s claims, Johnson said: Some of the statements I heard have nothing to do with reality, and what people are asking us to do is implement our roadmap and cautiously move the country through one of the most difficult times. I will not talk about it, the UK prime minister said of the revelation that he said he was ready to pile up thousands of bodies, but not quarantine again last year. Asked if Cummings’s revelations about the government’s inaction and delay in dealing with the coronavirus in a timely manner were true, Johnson said: No, I do not think so. Of course, we faced a series of very difficult decisions, none of which we underestimated.
Matt Hancock’s Reaction to the Revelations Made Against Him
In addition to Johnson, the British health secretary responded to Cummings’s remarks by saying that all these allegations are very serious and I take this opportunity to formally state that the allegations made about our honesty are baseless and untrue. I have always been honest with people, in the community or in private meetings.
Boris Johnson Continued to Decline in Popularity over the Past Year
The results of a poll conducted by YouGov on the prime minister show that he has continued to decline in popularity over the past year and the leader of the opposition (Labour) is more likely to take power in the country. Labour leader Keir Starmer is 5% more popular than Boris Johnson, according to statistics from YouGov. The poll found that Labour and Conservative leaders were 34% and 29% popular in the UK respectively.
Dissatisfaction with Government Performance is the Reason for Boris Johnson’s Decline in Popularity
According to the YouGov poll, half of Britons are dissatisfied with the government’s performance during the exit from the EU. Fifty two percent versus 35% believe the government has done very poorly. Meanwhile, 48% of Britons consider leaving the EU a wrong move. In the 2016 referendum, 51.9% of people voted to leave and 48.1% to stay in the EU.
The UK and the EU finally agreed on the future of post-Brexit trade cooperation in late 2020, after months of intense and exhausting negotiations. From the beginning of the New Year, people gradually realised the futility of Brexit. In this agreement, the UK has not gained any special privileges, and what is called maintaining sovereignty or taking control of the country and the fate of the country is practically meaningless with the restrictions imposed in this agreement.
The UK has given many concessions to the other side just to tell people that they have reached an agreement so that they can end the four-and-a-half-year conflict. Boris Johnson has now reached the pinnacle of his political existence with the completion of Brexit and the implementation of his only election slogan, and from now on he will only be on the decline. The British government also performed poorly during the outbreak of the coronavirus, which caused it to peak again and again. The government has had to impose nationwide quarantines during this time. These two factors have drastically reduced the popularity of the government, and it is likely that 2021 will be Boris Johnson’s last year in office as prime minister.
