52% of voters from all parties were behind his side. 52% of people voting for a brexit doesn't translate into 52% of the seats in the House of Commons going to a Johnson-led Conservative party.

Edit: And it certainly doesn't translate into 52% of people wanting him to win in 2020. If he negotiates a poor deal with the EU and/or 'forgets' about a few central 'Leave' arguments, he'll be in all sorts of trouble.

But that 52% gives him the moral authority to "do his best" to take the country out of the EU. If he screws up a bit, who can blame him? It's a tough situation anyway etc etc.

You have to understand how those people operate. They don't give two bits about reason and making sense. All they care about is to stay in power. They optimise for that and that alone. And 52% is power, beyond BoJo's (or Gove's or Farage's) wildest dreams.

If Brexit was a big mistake, thinking that Boris will get cold feet now that he has a clear line of sight to his goal (to be PM, duh) is an even bigger one.

> But that 52% gives him the moral authority to "do his best" to take the country out of the EU. If he screws up a bit, who can blame him? It's a tough situation anyway

That's not how it works - that 52% is not some uniform body with similar goals and vision beyond Brexit. This is the same challenge facing many popular revolutions - there is little uniting them beyond ousting Gaddafi, or "the 1%" (add Brexit to this list). Once they have "won", suddenly they realize they can't cater to everyone's wants and the whole thing splinters into factions.

Well yes, he has a mandate to try. But if it all goes badly, he'll get the blame - and there's a good chance it'll go badly because Leave set some pretty lofty goals.

He had 52% of voters behind him. We don't know what the current percentage is.

And yes I imagine it can't be fun to have to be the one to implement all of this.