“WHAT TOOK YOU so long?”

A reasonable question for an exasperated British public to ask.

For months, it has taken every available opportunity to express its contempt for Boris Johnson. Outside St Paul’s Cathedral, they booed him. At the darts, they chanted “stand up if you hate Boris”.

At the ballot box, they abandoned him, delivering the Conservative party a series of crushing electoral defeats.

Despite all this, Cabinet members and Conservative backbenchers stuck with Johnson. They swallowed the lies the public would not tolerate. Turned a blind eye when he was found to have broken English law. Cheered him on when he proposed breaking international law.

Johnson once said of his time as the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, that it was like “chucking these rocks over the garden wall – and hearing an amazing crash next door in England”.

He has been chucking rocks ever since, carelessly smashing up the country that he proclaims to love.

Johnson is a constitutional, social, and economic vandal, and his colleagues in the Conservative party have been merrily handing him rocks for years.

Now we are expected to believe that one of Johnson’s many enablers is best placed to repair the extraordinary damage that has happened, not only on their watch, but with their encouragement.

The last week in British politics was a farce. When former health secretary Sajid Javid resigned, it caused a domino effect that ultimately resulted in more than 40 government ministers quitting. Indeed, resignation became so fashionable that Michelle Donelan resigned less than 48 hours after being appointed Secretary of State for Education.

That said, it was not fashionable enough for Johnson. He stepped out of Downing Street on Thursday and delivered a resignation speech during which he never uttered the word “resign” and after which he continued to be paid to be Prime Minister.

It is an extraordinary, embarrassing, and depressing state of affairs. The United Kingdom now has a caretaker Prime Minister in all but name, and a cobbled-together cabinet made up of those who love him, those who hate him, and those who want to replace him. The UK government is absent without leave.

Out of this chaos is supposed to emerge a saviour who, despite happily following Johnson as he dragged the government through the gutter, is meant to walk into Downing Street inexplicably smelling of roses.

They will claim that they represent change, a break from the past, a new beginning – but it will be the same old faces, with the same old ideas, the ones who got the UK into this mess to begin with.

As corrosive as Johnson is, he has only been able to cause so much damage because his colleagues have repeatedly backed him up. In so doing, they have demonstrated time and again an extraordinary lack of judgement.

Removing Johnson from Downing Street will not suddenly make those who remain venerable sages. If the players are rubbish, the team is getting relegated, it does not matter who the manager is.

The only hope then is for the British public to show better judgement than its politicians.

It reached the obvious conclusion on Johnson long before its MPs. It also needs to reach the obvious conclusion that real change only comes with a change of government. The UK will only be put back on track if recent by-election defeats prove to be a precursor to a general election defeat for the government.

Should the British public take that opportunity to finally throw the Conservatives out of office after more than a decade in power, it would be perfectly reasonable for its allies and neighbours to ask: “What took you so long?”.

Sydney Nash is a former civil servant and UK/EU negotiator, and a former advisor to the automotive sector on Brexit and international trade. He writes in a personal capacity and can be found @NashSGC.