Boris Johnson could destroy the Conservative party to save himself | The last days of Boris Johnson

The last days of Boris Johnson

 

As a disgraced prime minister fights for survival, what does it mean for the Conservative Party – and for Britain?

 

By Andrew Marr

Photo by Chris Floyd

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2022/07/andrew-marr-last-days-boris-johnson-sajid-javid-rishi-sunak-resignation

 

For once, the message from the Downing Street machine was frank, accurate and crystal clear: “It’s over.” The double resignation of Sajid Javid, the health secretary, and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, smashes the dam. It marks the end of Boris Johnson’s overlordship of Britain. The water is gushing through. The cracks gape in every direction. It cannot be rebuilt.

 

This doesn’t mean that the end for Johnson will come quickly. It certainly won’t come neatly. It would be in the national interest for him now to leave No 10 by the front door, announce his resignation and offer, in a spirit of generosity and humility, his help as the Tory party struggles in short order to find a new leader.

 

We may sneer and despise politicians. We may hate them. But the country needs governance and an effective government. Somebody must be chancellor of the exchequer. Somebody must run the NHS. Step forward, Nadhim Zahawi and Steve Barclay respectively. But the sad truth is that Johnson’s last gift to his party is likely to be a chaotic transition rather than a smooth one. Certainly, at the time of writing and as his cabinet started to come apart, he seemed determined to hang on. Loyalists were begged not to desert him. One by one the junior ministers fled. Tory party office holders resigned on live television. But still a zombie cabinet struggled on.

 

The question is, to what end? After a day spent in the Westminster coffee bars and corridors, it was clear to me on 5 July that this time Conservative backbenchers had had it up to the back teeth. I have never heard such anger – not against Tony Blair in the aftermath of the Iraq War, not against Margaret Thatcher as she was falling. No 10’s lies over the promotion of Christopher Pincher after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him – exposed in a stinging public letter by the former head of the Foreign Office, Simon McDonald, one of the most respected public servants in Britain – genuinely revolted MPs who had up to then reluctantly stuck with the Prime Minister.

 

“This is worse than partygate,” was a phrase I heard half a dozen times from different people in the hours before the resignations of Sunak and Javid. Those plotting to take over the 1922 Committee, which comprises all Tory MPs except for ministers, think that up to half the entire parliamentary party – as many as 180 MPs – might be persuaded to send in letters demanding Johnson’s resignation.