If one were going to pick a nation which would find itself in the position of having no functioning government it is not the UK which would immediately spring to mind. But in a sequence of events unprecedented in that country’s modern history, this is the situation in which it found itself early yesterday. And it is just one man who caused this chaos: Boris Johnson, who has now resigned as Britain’s Prime Minister. It is not as if many people, not least those in his own Conservative Party, were not aware of his significant character flaws when he entered office; those have been on public display throughout his adulthood. Tory grandees are on record as having commented that he was the kind of man you would want at a dinner party but not in government, or that he was a brilliant campaigner but should never be allowed to govern.
He is clever, funny, entertaining and boasts a certain charisma. His antics and buffoonery endeared him to the public which saw him as a personality quite different from the average earnest-sounding politician, and therefore more like one of them rather than a member of the elite. Despite the fact that London is an uncompromisingly Labour city, his persona and unconventional style earned him the mayorship for two terms. It must be said that there is one caveat to this: unlike the English, the more puritanically-inclined Scots loathe him, and at poll times Scottish Tory candidates beg him not to come north in case he poisons their bid for election.
The problem with Boris Johnson is his complete lack of integrity. He has a less than tangential relationship with the truth and he is clearly a narcissist. In addition, what his political principles are is not obvious; the most that can be said is that unlike his former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, he is not the traditional small government, low taxes kind of Conservative. He has no respect for rules of any kind, and just ignores them or tries to amend them to suit his convenience. His decisions in recent times have been tailored not in the country’s interest, but to ensure his own survival at No. 10.
His downfall started in slow motion, and can probably be dated to his attempt to save his friend and colleague Owen Paterson who had been suspended for 30 days by the House of Commons Standards Committee last year for a breach of lobbying rules. The Prime Minister with the help of his party voted to pause the suspension while the system for policing MPs was overhauled. This was a step too far, and following a backlash Johnson retreated and Paterson resigned.
Even before that, however, there had been questions about how the decoration of the Prime Minister’s flat with its gold leaf wallpaper was paid for, although he was cleared by his Ethics Advisor Lord Geidt in that regard. That advisor, however, was to resign in relation to a subsequent matter, as his predecessor had done before him. It is hardly much of a recommendation to lose two ethics advisors within the space of two years.
Then there were the boozy parties at Downing Street, for one of which Johnson received a fine from the police. The civil servant appointed to investigate partygate, as it came to be known, issued a damning report on the alcohol-fuelled culture at No. 10, while a parliamentary committee is still to investigate the matter of whether the Prime Minister misled Parliament about the parties.
There were policy differences too with different wings of the party, over the increase in taxes in an economic crisis, and the measures taken to ameliorate the cost of living which some MPs thought was too little too late. Then there is the matter as well of Johnson’s determination to amend the Northern Ireland protocol, which is part of the Brexit treaty with the EU he himself had signed. The breach of international law has angered many party stalwarts, but is an example of his cavalier approach to rules, something which he intended to repeat in relation to WTO regulations and British steel.
With such an accumulation of breaches and misjudgments against him, Johnson faced a confidence motion in June this year, which he won, although 41% of his MPs voted against him. What had ensured his survival up to that point was the feeling that he might still command the support of the electorate and could win a general election, but the subsequent loss of two by-elections brought that into doubt.
The Prime Minister’s dogged refusal to resign prior to yesterday was based on his belief that he had won a mandate in the 2019 election, giving the Tories their largest majority since Margaret Thatcher’s day. His problem is that under the British system voters elect parties, not leaders, although a popular or unpopular leader can make a big difference to a party’s fortunes. As all commentators have observed, the impressive majority of 2019 was also a reflection of the fact that the electorate voted against Jeremy Corbyn of Labour, which suffered its worst defeat since the 1930s. As for the current situation, the evidence from polls would seem to suggest that contrary to his conviction Mr Johnson does not enjoy the popularity he once did.
Since it is the parties in the UK which choose their leaders, it is only the party in government which can change a prime minister in mid-stream. Under Conservative Party rules, if a Prime Minister wins a confidence vote another such vote cannot be brought for at least a year. While discussions about changing the rules have been underway, most hoped that the Prime Minister would do the decent thing and resign, which up until Wednesday evening he vehemently insisted he would not do.
But by then the final straw had come for many MPs over the matter of Chris Pincher, the Deputy Chief Whip who is responsible for ensuring MPs behave appropriately but who resigned after committing a sexual impropriety. Following that, other allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of Pincher surfaced, some going back years, and the Prime Minister was asked about what he knew, and when. It was all over when ministers were dispatched to defend Johnson but were furnished with inaccurate information from Downing Street. Worse than that, the story kept changing, so ministers were left looking dishonest.
On Tuesday two Cabinet heavyweights, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid resigned, and this set off a flood of resignations, totalling 44 within twenty-four hours. By early yesterday morning the number had reached more than fifty, and members of the party admitted there were not now enough junior ministers to see through their legislative programme in the House of Commons. Johnson’s position was not helped by the fact that his newly appointed Education Secretary resigned after only 35 hours in the post, and his newly appointed Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi told him that he should resign.
Various members of his Cabinet also said he should go, including his Home Secretary Priti Patel, who up to that point had always been an unreconstructed loyalist, and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, while the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, which handles leadership elections told him that he had lost the support of most of the Conservative Party. So finally the Houdini of British politics was forced to resign. He was not at all contrite. In explaining why he had to go he said, “But as we’ve seen at Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves.” As is his wont, he accepted no responsibility for his situation.
But the story does not end there. Exactly how soon a new leader can be elected is not clear. It may be possible in the next few weeks, if not it would not be before the autumn, and in the meantime Mr Johnson is expecting to remain as caretaker Prime Minister. The opposition want him to go immediately and appoint another caretaker, as do some members of his own party. The latter have suggested that Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab should be appointed. Just how long Johnson can cling on to a job he never wanted to relinquish in the first place remains to be seen.
