Well, there he goes. A man who, just a few short weeks ago, announced his intention to pursue a third Prime Ministerial term, and described his political career as “barely begun”, has resigned his office in disgrace.
Boris Johnson’s resignation has been characteristically sickening. Even after the most embarrassing and excruciatingly pitiful episodes in the history of British politics, he presented himself as he always has; as a cheerful, cheeky chappie, bumbling his way through the gravest and most serious of life’s challenges with a happy-go-lucky smirk plastered on his blubbery lips.
He exited 10 Downing Street soaking up applause from the assembled sycophants and yes-people. Among them, his third wife Carrie and seventh (claimed and/or acknowledged) child Romy, as well as a handful of loyal “politicians” who have debased, defiled, and dishonoured themselves at every available opportunity to glean the most minuscule scrap of approval from their great and benevolent leader.
His speech was so toe-curlingly infuriating that I haven’t the heart to commit a single word of it to this blog. Just know, dear reader, that he demonstrated not a single scrap of humility, not one iota of regret, and no apology whatsoever for the months and months and years and years of shame, fury, and constitutional peril he has forced upon the good people of these islands.
In a lot of ways, I was surprised that he agreed to resign at all. I expected him to ignore the advice of the nearly sixty Government members who tendered their resignations, and dig his fingernails into the black doorframe of Number 10. But in the end, even he had the minimum amount of brain cells to know that it was mathematically impossible for him to continue as Prime Minister after a third of his Government resigned in a single seventy-two hour period.
In his nationally embarrassing speech, he claimed that it was not the British people, but the Parliamentary Conservative Party that wished him replaced as their leader. This nonsense echoes a similar sentiment that has been parroted by Johnson loyalists in the media since the resignations of Sunak and Javid on Tuesday; that because the Tories won that thumping majority in 2019, that Johnson is entitled to stay in office until the next election, no matter how the mood of the country and of Parliament changes.
This forgets the most basic and fundamental fact of our weird, archaic, nuanced political system; we are a Parliamentary Democracy. We do not elect Presidents to lead us, we elect parties to lead us, and whoever happens to be the leader of that party occupies a leading role in the Government. They are not a head of state. They are subject to the will of their party, and their party is in turn subject to the will of the people.
It was the Conservatives that won the mandate to lead the country, not Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson has only won two elections that put him in Number 10; the Conservative Party leadership election, and his constituency election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip at the last general election. He does not, as his swiftly diminishing parade of bootlickers like to suggest, a fourteen million strong majority with which to do whatever he pleases. He won his seat by an anaemic seven thousand, two hundred and ten votes.
This, depressingly, is not the last we have heard of him. He has resigned only as the leader of the Conservative party, not as Prime Minister. He has announced his intention to stay on as a caretaker PM until his party elects a new leader, which could be as late as October. The reaction to this announcement has been one of predictable outrage, and is being described as yet another Johnsonian attempt to cling to his beloved title for as many seconds as possible.
Kier Starmer has announced his intention to call a vote of no confidence in Johnson unless he leaves Number 10 immediately, a sentiment echoed by nearly every MP in Westminster. The majority of his own party wanted him to be an ex-Prime Minister yesterday, as did the British people about six months ago. The role of caretaker PM should pass to his sweating deputy, Dominic Raab, to do very little of consequence for the next few months until a new Conservative leader is appointed come their party conference.
If you read this blog, you would probably guess that I would be happy about the end of Johnson, but no. This entire sorry spectacle has left me with nothing but rage, and deep, deep sadness that we let it come to this. James O’Brien said it best; the arsonist may be gone, and the fire may be out, but the damage done by the flames is lasting, and will leave its mark for decades to come.
Brexit has done irreversible harm to this nation’s prospects, and was brought about largely by the efforts of one man. The Conservative party, an institution I never fully agreed with, but respected nonetheless, is a shadow of what it was a few decades ago. Under Johnson’s premiership, it has widely been described as an ‘English Nationalist’ party, no longer a small state, low tax party. It represents now only sleaze, scandal, sexual deviancy, economic mismanagement, and a gaping lack of empathy.
To list the many illegalities, untruths, and ill-devised policies that have oozed from the Johnson government since its first day would take effort that I no longer have. I am well and truly done with Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. I never want to mention his name again, but I know I will have to. The day when he is finally, deservedly, and permanently ejected from political consciousness, will be a very happy day indeed.
stay safe
/e