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HE may not, in the end, have proved the great Prime Minister The Sun once hoped.
But Boris Johnson is a giant figure in our nation’s story, the most significant politician since Margaret Thatcher.
Under Boris Britain then led the world in inventing and rolling out vaccines[/caption]
That is not merely our belief. It is a fact. He changed Britain for the better long before he took office and can boast of huge achievements in power too.
After the shambles of the last few days his resignation speech was remarkable for its measured dignity.
For all the ceaseless sneering of Labour and gloating Remainers, the “relentless sledging” Boris spoke of, history will one day reflect kindly on him.
Brexit, the revolutionary clamour for independence by a 17.4million majority, was our country’s greatest shift in direction in decades.
Its vast potential is nowhere near yet fully realised. But without Boris it would never have happened at all.
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Not just because his charisma and persuasive powers tipped the balance for Leave in 2016.
But because three years later they also won him a giant election majority, ending the hideous menace of an extremist Labour Government and smashing the paralysis inflicted on politics by a rancid Remainer Parliament.
That ensured Brexit would happen. That our democracy, jeopardised with insane nonchalance by anti-Brexit politicians and campaigners, would prevail.
Boris signed a rapid trade deal with Brussels which Remoaners sneered would take ten years. Scores of others were done around the world.
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On their own these are major achievements. But there was much more.
Squandered chance
Boris’s Government was hit immediately by a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Its response was flawed — but Britain then led the world in inventing and rolling out vaccines.
That was the direct result of decisive leadership from the top. From Boris.
So was the launch of the furlough scheme. Together they saved countless lives and jobs.
Lockdowns persisted too long. But Boris’s instincts were always to keep us as free as possible.
Defying hysteria from Labour and its charlatan leader, Boris lifted restrictions earlier than anywhere else in Europe and got our economy back on track.
Then, within hours of the Covid threat receding, Russia invaded Ukraine and Boris led the response of the free world.
Britain poured in weapons and aid. His determination to defend a free nation against tyranny was unflinching, unlike that of EU leaders with economies in hock to Russian gas.
It is why Boris is lauded by Ukraine’s brave people and they are not.
Boris and the millions of fans he still has claim these global issues curtailed what he could achieve at home. That is too easy.
The sad truth is he squandered the chance his majority gave him to reshape Britain as a low-tax, low-regulation, high-growth economy.
He was too complacent about his grip on power and Labour’s feebleness. When he spoke of being in No10 for a decade he wasn’t joking.
So the much-trailed bonfire of EU red tape suffocating British businesses never happened.
Boris even failed to cut soaring energy bills by scrapping VAT . . . a Brexit promise.
He then raised taxes, for a public already engulfed by the inflation crisis, to their highest in 70 years. And his blind faith in Net Zero regardless of cost was madness.
But none of this would have been fatal were it not for the scandals and their chronic mishandling.
For months they dogged him, ceaselessly whipped up by his enemies.
In the end, it was No10’s disastrous response to the Chris Pincher groping debacle which was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Yes, many of Boris’s wounds were self-inflicted — but let no one forget the pivotal role of the demented six-year-long hate campaign waged against him by Remainers and our now obnoxiously biased broadcast media.
Watching any news channel yesterday — BBC, ITV or Sky — you could not miss the presenters’ glee nor the parade of triumphant Remainer guests they have had on speed-dial since 2016.
Decrepit europhile bores like Michael Heseltine — a busted flush 25 years ago, let alone in 2022 — were wheeled out to spit on Boris’s grave, then lick their lips about reversing Brexit.
“I coined the phrase ‘if Boris goes Brexit goes’,” he trilled smugly.
Over in Brussels, their curtain-haired soulmate Guy Verhofstadt rejoiced.
So did Michel Barnier. How proud they must be to hear the butcher Putin agreeing with them.
We fully expect the BBC — now openly campaigning for a Labour Government — to talk up any Tory Remainer for PM and venomously denounce all Brexiteers.
It comes so naturally now we doubt they even grasp what impartiality is, let alone that their charter demands it.
The Sun is keeping an open mind today on who should take over. But we know what policies they should pursue.
It is vital to cut bills and taxes immediately. We want a credible plan to do so, funded by slashing state spending.
That includes slimming down the bloated civil service, so many of whom now “work” from home.
Wasteful wokery
We want an end to wasteful wokery, to millions blown hiring diversity co-ordinators or rewriting public information bulletins to make language more “inclusive” to avoid some imagined offence.
We must cancel April’s National Insurance rise and the planned hikes in corporation tax which never made sense and look even more recklessly damaging in a grave economic crisis.
The new PM must tackle pump prices with much bigger cuts to duty and VAT.
They must scrap or suspend green levies on energy bills and order a forensic financial review into our commitment to Net Zero by 2050.
If the costs look ruinous, let us be much more realistic about what can be done.
Britain must start fracking for shale gas.
Net Zero will never be achieved without more UK-produced energy to tide us over.
For our security, and lower prices, shale looks essential.
We must turbo-charge growth too, increasing productivity nationwide with greater investment in technology.
And a new PM must embrace our Brexit freedoms by cutting regulation and reducing to zero as many trade tariffs as possible.
The Sun wishes Boris well as he and Carrie move on with their lives post-Downing Street.
He got plenty wrong. He got a lot more right.
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He had many enemies, whose hatred was unhinged and their treatment of him often ridiculously unfair.
But, as the PM said yesterday: “Them’s the breaks.”
Mr Johnson gave weapons and aid to Ukraine. His determination to defend a free nation against tyranny was unflinching.[/caption]
We fully expect the BBC — now openly campaigning for a Labour Government — to talk up any Tory Remainer for PM and venomously denounce all Brexiteers[/caption]
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