‘We didn’t vote for this’: anger over Brexit failures is haunting the Tories

Goldthorpe high street, near Barnsley, in South Yorkshire, where some voters feel they have been abandoned by both parties. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

Three years ago last week, Boris Johnson stormed to victory in an election fought by the Conservatives under the simple slogan: “Get Brexit done.” The morning after, the then prime minister urged everyone to “find closure” on the European question that had split his party and country for so long.

He called on the British people to unite, to “let the healing begin” and to focus on the NHS. The Tories had broken through the “red wall”. They seemed all-powerful. It was Labour that faced existential questions.