In the early stages of the 2019 election, Boris Johnson started repeating a new soundbite while out on the campaign trail: levelling up. It was meant to sum up the Tories’ appeal to what has since become known as the red wall — a promise to spread opportunity more equally. There was just one problem: Johnson’s team all thought it was terrible.

When strategists tested it in focus groups, voters in Tory shires thought it meant taxing the south to bribe the north. Red wall voters were split on whether this was a trick from the “same old Tories” or communistsounding. “It was an example of repeating a slogan and thinking it’s good because everyone is writing about it,” says one figure who worked on the campaign. Johnson, unperturbed, kept on going, won the red wall and declared levelling up to be a defining purpose of his government.

Three years and two prime ministers later, the Tories are no closer to explaining their supposed flagship domestic policy. It now falls to Rishi Sunak to make sense of a Johnsonian phrase. Tories representing red wall marginals have been instructed by Tory HQ to find ways of making it tangible to voters. This includes breaking down what it means for the area and “refining” how the phrase is used.

Whatever the Tories want to call it, the levelling-up agenda is fast becoming a vulnerability for Sunak. Johnson promised the world to the red wall — and his successor (bar one) is now expected to meet those expectations. It has not been plain sailing.

Rather than a moment of triumph, the announcement this week of the second round of cash from the levelling-up fund, worth £2.1 billion from a pot of £4.8 billion, has led to Sunak’s worst fracas with his MPs to date. With 550 requests for funding and only 111 winners, Tories who failed in their bids have seen red, with the prime minister accused of prioritising the southeast over the northeast. A minister describes the party as “steaming”. “It’s No 10’s first real misstep on party management,” says a former minister. As MPs received tip-offs on the fate of their bids, there were angry scenes in the Commons, with ministers confronted by MPs who had lost out.

While some of the more divisive allocations — such as funds for cabinet ministers’ seats, including Sunak’s — could have been avoided, much of this is down to Johnson. The failure of previous governments to define levelling up means people have bid, in the words of one MP, for “absolutely everything”. Successful bids range from funding for Malvern theatres to new cycling and walking infrastructure in Camden, north London. “I can’t speak for Boris but it’s not what I imagine he meant when he spoke in 2019,” says one MP from that intake.

Rishi Sunak is already vulnerable to criticism on his red wall appeal

In her brief tenure in No 10, Liz Truss tried to focus levelling up on her favourite things: tax cuts and deregulation. When Sunak took over, he swiftly restored Michael Gove as levelling-up secretary. It was meant to show continuity, and that the agenda remained important.

Even though Sunak did not name it as one of his five priorities, the prime minister still views spreading opportunity as a key electoral offer. But a policy that remains so ill-defined is hard to deliver on — particularly when expectations have been raised over the past three years. As Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said, the sums for the north are “a long way off the radical economic transformation we were promised”.

In No 10, Johnson would keep saying “we have to deliver for these people”. As a backbench MP he told supporters at a recent dinner at the Carlton Club to “keep making the case for levelling up”. But deliver what? “I sat in so many meetings of the 1922 Committee when Boris would tell us we’d all have something on our leaflets to point to at the next election,” says one disheartened MP. “Now Rishi is expected to deliver it.” Many MPs, particularly in the red wall, had imagined levelling up would secure their seat. Any failure to deliver it will just add to their nerves.

Already MPs are pressing the government to bring forward the third and final round of funding. Leaving it until just before the next election is pointless — the sooner more constituencies can benefit, the better. But even successful bids from this, the second round, are unlikely to have too much to look at if an election takes place in 18 months’ time.

The best hope among Tory MPs is that there will be thousands of shovels in the ground — something to point to. But in terms of transformation, this seems optimistic. In Germany, despite three decades trying to reduce the economic gap between east and west, it remains substantial. In the UK in 2021, public spending in the north was up by 17 per cent over two years to £16,223 per person, but in London it was up by 25 per cent, at £19,231.

Sunak is already vulnerable to criticism on his red wall appeal. He represents a northern seat but he tends to poll better down south. Johnson supporters complain there are “more MPs from Surrey in the cabinet than northerners”. There are concerns that levelling up is an issue on which Johnson could intervene, saying his agenda has been watered down.

As he takes to the world stage in Davos, it’s not the only Johnson legacy issue the PM has to worry about. Johnson is a spectre over Northern Ireland. His recent comments that “only one party” believes “in the union with Northern Ireland” rang alarm bells with government aides. They worry he could weigh in over a new protocol deal — despite signing it the first place — if he thinks any compromise fails to pass muster.

Then there’s an issue government insiders regard as a ticking time bomb: Johnson’s resignation honours list. His proposals to ennoble four Tory MPs, with a consequent four by-elections, already risks dragging Sunak and the King into constitutional discomfiture if they delay the peerages. The wider list spells more trouble. Those privy to it say it runs to more than 100 names, including longstanding staff who worked for Johnson throughout the various scandals such as partygate. Theresa May’s and David Cameron’s lists were in the region of 40. It could be a gift to Labour.

Comments by Johnson about Northern Ireland have rung alarm bells

For Sunak, the biggest Johnson problem is not an attempted comeback. It’s Johnson lurking around right where he is.

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