London: Last month it seemed like Britain might try and copy the Australia’s record of the last decade and reach for its fourth prime minister in six years. Now there’s a chance he might survive.
Boris Johnson, seriously wounded by revelations that he and his staff hosted parties in Downing Street while the rest of the country locked down, was waking up to headlines threatening backbench revolts, led by the class for 2019 – the MPs he helped elect at the end of that year.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks to the media during a visit to a military base near Warsaw in Poland on Thursday.Credit:Daniel Leal/Pool via AP
To understand how his position could have deteriorated from where he stood when he won an 80-seat majority to the situation he finds himself just one year later – having to beg and cajole MPs against putting in letters against him – requires an understanding of the original transaction that saw him replace Theresa May as prime minister.
At the beginning Johnson had just two jobs – defeat then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and end the Brexit deadlock that May could not achieve. Having completed those tasks, Johnson and his ramshackle style are now in the spotlight.
And it’s not to everyone’s taste.
MPs who were plotting a leadership spill were stymied when their actions and dissatisfaction went too far, even for the most ardent of critics.
Christian Wakeford, an MP who most had to frantically Google when it emerged he had defected to Labour, ironically ended up handing Johnson a lifeline with his betrayal.
Even Tories who loathe Johnson hate a rat more. Wakeford united the fraying Tory party and crucially, gave Johnson time to consult his unhappy MPs and take their counsel.
The fruits of that are obvious. He has begun clearing out his back room staff, employing a new Chief of Staff, creating a Department of Prime Minister akin to Australia’s PM&C and firmly taking a position with the living with COVID-19 camp, having repeatedly dismayed his MPs by imposing new restrictions.
Expect to see Johnson speaking less about animal rights, net-zero green goals and more about post-Brexit changes like free ports.
The question, of course, is whether this will be enough? The answer really lies with Johnson himself. Johnson was elected to get politics out of people’s lives. Resolving Brexit with a decisive election win did that.
There has been a rise in political conflict regarding issues that are either binary in nature (such as the Brexit referendum)Credit:AP
But then came COVID-19 and the British people experienced the greatest intrusion into their lives since the World War II and before a huge rump of the population was even alive.
Every revelation of another Downing Street party, a new photograph or further investigation into this sorry saga is simply more politics, more chaos, more soap-opera, when the cost of living is severely rising and voters are bracing themselves for the economic fallout from shutting down the economy for the best part of two years.
Voters are just as desperate as Johnson for the focus to be back on them and their concerns, there is not the sense, yet, that they are out with the baseball bats for Johnson, they are angry but more frustrated at the way the soap opera has been front and centre for nearly three months.
This is the message MPs considering a coup have also heard. The way the leadership contests are held in the UK means that voters would be subjected to three months of Tory MPs prancing about the leadership merry-go-round.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, is regarded as an improving performer against Boris Johnson.Credit:Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament via AP
So Johnson has chanced upon some wriggle room. If he can seize the agenda and move it on, he has a chance of choosing how and when his prime ministership ends.
Perhaps the most crucial test will come in May when the local council elections are held.
While the polling is dire, it’s mid-term and MPs are still confident that the lacklustre, although improving, Opposition leader Keir Starmer will never be a Blairite blockbuster at the ballot box.
But first, Johnson requires a mistake-free next few months and that path is still loaded with landmines.
The civil servant who investigated the parties, Sue Gray, still needs to deliver her full report and the police investigation into Downing Street staff, including the Prime Minister, is yet to conclude.
If that ends in the Prime Minister being fined for breaching lockdown laws, as former Tory Leader Iain Duncan Smith said this week, it would be tough to see how Johnson survives.
The other wildcard is Dominic Cummings. The man who built the Prime Minister, crafting the famous ‘Take Back Control’ Brexit slogan for the successful Vote Leave campaign and then shepherded the 2019 election landslide is now bent on bringing down his former boss.
Whether it’s his pathological dislike of Johnson or the Prime Minister’s third wife, Carrie, that motivates his revenge is beside the point. Johnson and his wife have given him ample opportunity.
Dominic Cummings says “there’s waaaaay better” photos of Boris Johnson breaking lockdown rules.Credit:Getty
Cummings may have more bombshells, as he hinted this week, when he said there were “there’s waaaaay better pics than that floating around, incl in the flat”.
He was responding to a newly emerged photograph of the Prime Minister at work standing behind a desk with a bottle of sparkling wine and a packet of opened chips on it. Two staffers are also pictured. The implication is that he attended yet another undeclared party, a charge he immediately denied in Parliament.
Finally, the other potential landmine is Johnson himself. He has always ruled by a sort of blustering chaos. This can reap high dividends – he can cut through and speak directly to Middle England in a way that his potential successors, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary would not.
But it’s high risk. Sometimes the pranks pay off, other times they don’t. The difference now is whether Boris has run out of lives. He can afford no more mistakes.
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