At the time, the idea of Brexit was still very popular, and Boris campaigned strongly on a promise to “get Brexit done.” The UK population trusting Boris to follow through on finally securing a Brexit deal that had consumed the entire UK political discussion for three years and two Tory governments, plus the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn being insanely unpopular (which, depending on your point of view, is due to him being way too left, a political smear job by the right-wing UK media, or a combination of both), lead to Labour getting blown out in the 2019 election. So… the answer to your question is probably “sort of? Or at least they didn’t trust Labour to not muck it up even worse.”
Notably, I’m not talking about whether Brexit was actually a good idea to begin with, and the deal Boris wound up negotiating was not even the least-bad possible outcome. Since then, the UK population seem to have finally woken up to the idea that burning literally their biggest bridge for trade and shredding a sweetheart deal was perhaps not very wise. That, combined with Boris resigning in shame over flouting his own lockdown rules, followed by his successor Liz Truss tanking the economy in record time, and a steady drip-drip of scandals and Tory resignations over various “lesser” scandals, put us where we are now.
Did they really think that Boris Johnson was making (or could make) things better ? He was already prime minister at that time.
Did things really change between then and now ?
At the time, the idea of Brexit was still very popular, and Boris campaigned strongly on a promise to “get Brexit done.” The UK population trusting Boris to follow through on finally securing a Brexit deal that had consumed the entire UK political discussion for three years and two Tory governments, plus the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn being insanely unpopular (which, depending on your point of view, is due to him being way too left, a political smear job by the right-wing UK media, or a combination of both), lead to Labour getting blown out in the 2019 election. So… the answer to your question is probably “sort of? Or at least they didn’t trust Labour to not muck it up even worse.”
Notably, I’m not talking about whether Brexit was actually a good idea to begin with, and the deal Boris wound up negotiating was not even the least-bad possible outcome. Since then, the UK population seem to have finally woken up to the idea that burning literally their biggest bridge for trade and shredding a sweetheart deal was perhaps not very wise. That, combined with Boris resigning in shame over flouting his own lockdown rules, followed by his successor Liz Truss tanking the economy in record time, and a steady drip-drip of scandals and Tory resignations over various “lesser” scandals, put us where we are now.