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Comment by jayflux | Hacker News Reader

Boris’ stock is pretty high right now, he’s just lead the country through COVID and got the brexit deal he wanted at the same time. Whether you like him or not that was no easy feat, it’s unlikely he would have any reason to resign unless something crazy happens in the next 12 months.

The affects of brexit won’t be felt just yet, and I don’t see his party pushing him out unless they’ve found a reasonable successor.

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Interesting that you came to this view. Boris seems to have handled COVID incredibly poorly (e.g. the death rate in the UK is higher than comparable countries) and the trade deal is considerably worse than deals he previously rejected (e.g. customs border inside the UK). I expect that once the world stabilizes again, members of his own party will want to take his job.

I agree with your assessment of Johnson, but I don't think the majority of the country (or perhaps more importantly conservative voters) do

We won't really know until the election, but for what it's worth opinion polls have Johnson down compared to when he started his term.

That's a neat alternative universe that you're in. COVID is a complete disaster in the UK (and in plenty of other places, but the clusterfuck in the UK is really quite something), besides that brexit could very well cause the UK to cease to exist or be diminished, you can expect a breakaway effort to start in Scotland just about today.

Imagine the irony of the UK more or less trying to forbid the Scots from seceding the union when they just seceded themselves from the EU. That won't go down well, no matter what legalese the argument will be cast into.

I’m not saying the COVID situation went well by any stretch, but I haven’t spoken to anyone on the street who wants Boris out of office due to it. If a general election happened tomorrow I doubt he would have problems. It’s pretty clear most countries have struggled to handle it so that’s probably why Boris hasn’t had as much flack as expected. Like I said, it’s unlikely that would be the reason he resigns, if that was the case he would have gone already.

Brexit will cause issues, but I don’t think many of them will happen in the next 12 months. The UK won’t “cease to exist” with the next few months let’s not be alarmist. (And I’m the one in an alternative universe?).

It’s more likely that Scotland will continue to ask for a referendum and Boris will continue to deny it.

I don't think Scotland will 'ask for a referendum', if they won't get the permission they seek they will go the legal route:

https://www.dw.com/en/scotland-nicola-sturgeon-aims-for-2021...

Scotland will be disproportionally hurt by their lack of EU membership and voted strongly against leaving the EU.

As for people not wanting Johnson out of office due to COVID: we are in a similar situation here in NL, but at the end of the day results are what matter and Johnson has done the UK citizens absolutely no service with is performance so far. Maybe it will take some time before that sinks in and I don't have a shred of doubt that he will try to pin the blame on the EU for all of his own failures.

true, that is one way of looking at it, though I'd still argue that his handling of COVID wasn't the best and same for the Brexit deal. Either way, IIRC there were rumors last year that he might resign in Feb or so, but maybe they were just rumors...

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