never forget, too, that Britain would not now have a new prime minister and a ‘new’ government if Johnson hadn’t screwed up communications about the Chris Pincher affair.
A week ago, after he won the confidence vote, there had been little serious effort to secure his impending departure, and any expectation that Johnson would squeeze and cheat his way into the party conference and beyond.
All those more than fifty ministers would never have resigned, never wrestled with their consciences, never sent pompous letters about “integrity” if Johnson shortly after the Sun broke the story, a routine piece of Tory sleaze.
They supported Johnson through the… Dominic Cummings scandal, the firing of two ethical advisers, the scandal of a party donor who pays for the decoration of his flat, the mishandling of the pandemic and the mismanagement of Brexit with a rotten deal, Partygate and the violation of the law, an illegal prorogation of parliament and violating treaties and international law, allegedly trying to get wife Carrie a £100,000 job and son Wilfred a £150,000 tree house, depriving children of free school dinners…and much more , much more.
They went along with that, and they would have gone on with Johnson for months—if not years—if he hadn’t humiliated some of them by giving them dodgy rules for media interviews.
If Therese Coffey had been given better, more truthful briefings when she went to Sophie Raworth’s BBC show, Johnson would still have shameful, servile support from the likes of Javid and Sunak.
So it’s not just Johnson who is morally compromised, but the entire Tory party, with rare exceptions.
They are all guilty men and women for voting for him, campaigning for him, supporting him, lying for him and generally disgracing themselves and the country. They were all members of Boris’ cult, and they knew exactly what he was.
They didn’t care because he was a winner. He didn’t suddenly become mean – he had been like that since about age eight.
He has outlived his usefulness to them, but if they thought the devil incarnate could win them the next election, they would be signing his nomination papers now. Parties tend to get the leaders they deserve.
Be careful what you wish for, as the old curse goes. Getting rid of Boris Johnson, and in this way, with his stubborn refusal to accept reality, means three things that will seriously damage the UK and his party in the coming years.
Firstly, the new prime minister and their government will face exactly the same problems as Johnson and will not solve them.
These will still be there when a new prime minister is appointed: inflation and the cost of living crisis; the mess that is Brexit and the Northern Ireland Protocol, and the collapse of the Irish peace process; the approaching recession; the trade deficit and weak public finances; strikes and shortages; supportive Ukraine long-term; and preparing for the next wave of Covid.
In all the events of the last few days, and the last weeks and months for that matter, it makes no sense that there are alternative leaders with the policy solutions the UK needs to face all these challenges.
Apart from some vague and reckless plans to cut taxes and fragment regulation, is there a way to end stagflation? I’d like to see it.
A new Tory Prime Minister will fundamentally (or at least for the better) change little, as so many of the problems the UK faces are due to Brexit, and the next government will obviously also be a Brexit government. That’s Johnson’s other toxic legacy.
Indeed, it is possible that the next leader will have to be even stricter on Brexit and more authoritarian than the previous incumbent just to win the basic elections. The next prime minister, like Johnson, will be elected by about 90,000 mostly elderly, reactionary and unrepresentative members of the Conservative Party. Just let that sink in. Terrible.
There will be “more Brexit”, not less, and even m
ore violations of international law and the trade and cooperation agreement between the EU and the UK. Imagine, if you will, Steve Baker or Suella Braverman as Prime Minister.
They would happily walk away from the EU free trade agreement and opt for World Trade Organization terms of trade with Europe, and a bonfire of protections in the areas of employment, health and safety, animal welfare and product safety.
What about leaving the European Convention on Human Rights? Deviating from UN conventions on rights? Force migrant boats back into the Channel? Nadine Dorries and order her to abolish the BBC in a fit of resentment? The Tory membership likes that sort of thing. People like Liz Truss and Nadhim Zahawi would also go in the same direction, albeit more cautiously.
These runners may be more competent and fairer than Johnson, but they would also be more extreme, more divisive and even more aggressive towards Europe, refugees, human rights and the Constitution. In other words, the UK may not get to power that nice Jeremy Hunt or Tom Tugendhat, but instead an even more vengeful figure than Johnson.
One of Johnson’s many disastrous legacies is “cakeism”, but any attempt to deviate from it will force the kind of hard choices the party and country have been trying to avoid for years – mainly pretending Brexit is compatible with Good Friday – Belfast agreement and that Brexit is compatible with a thriving economy.
Penny Mordaunt seems most likely to be trying to muddle through, trying to make Johnson-style cakeism work, constantly dividing the difference and being blown around by the factions, and would be the closest thing to a continuation from Johnson, but without the jokes.
The Tory divisions on policy will not disappear, and they will be exacerbated by this regicide. As Johnson’s most loyal and able ally, Conor Burns, warns, there will also be major resentment over the way Johnson is being ousted from among his sizable fan base in the country and the party. It’s a version of the standard “stab in the back” conspiracy theory.
The idea is that 14 million voters gave Boris Johnson a mandate in the 2019 UK general election, and were betrayed by a cabal of Tory MPs assisted by lying media. There was a coup, a plot, in this scenario, to frustrate the will of the people.
Nonsense as in a parliamentary democracy, but they believe that a prime minister should only be removed by the people at new general elections. It’s the same kind of myth that perpetuated the Thatcherites after her defenestration in 1990, embittering their differences in Europe and poisoning conservative politics for two decades.
Some people, believe it or not, love Boris Johnson and will view any successor as an impostor. That’s a further poisonous legacy of his thankless departure. (© Independent News Service)