Finally it has happened: Boris Johnson is going to resign. He’s on the way out at least, after two turbulent, toxic and unprecedented days at 10 Downing Street last week. Britain’s highly controversial and divisive Conservative Prime Minister is standing down after a flurry of scandals and growing mistrust have undermined his position.

  It has been a hyper-dramatic week for UK politics with the media rushing frantically to catch up with the 57 ministerial resignations designed to pressurize Boris to stand down because of the damage he has inflicted on his and the Tories’ own reputation.

  But that’s not the end of the story. Johnson’s decision to stay in office as “caretaker” until a successor is chosen has sparked fresh controversy within his own fractured party. While this is the convention usually followed, his many critics argue that Johnson should step down immediately.

 Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton, tweeted: “Boris Johnson is being forced to resign for being unfit for office as a reckless, untrustworthy, lying, law-breaking rogue Prime Minister with no regard for rule of law or our democratic systems. He must not be allowed to stay on for 3 months after resigning and must go now.” And even the pro-Tory Spectator magazine put it like this: “Basic standards – honesty, consistency, competence, transparency – are being jettisoned to save his skin.”

 In a speech outside Downing Street last Thursday that was tinged with bitterness, Johnson blamed fellow-ministers for turning on him but expressed neither regret nor contrition for his mistakes or misjudgements. His premiership, which will have lasted just three years, was overshadowed by the catastrophic Covid crisis, and marred by persistent claims of sleaze, which saw two of his ethics advisers resign.

 After a series of black marks on his reputation the thing that finally ended his tenure in Number 10 was the growing realization that Boris could not be trusted to tell the truth about his own behaviour. His final career-ending mistake was his failure to admit that he had erred in appointing a Tory MP and alleged sexual predator, Chris Pincher, as deputy chief whip of the party. Johnson was shown to have known about prior allegations of misbehaviour before originally giving him the job.

 Instead in his resignation address, Johnson highlighted the “incredible mandate” his party won in the 2019 general election, and policies including the Covid vaccine rollout and, following the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union, his catchy slogan “Get Brexit done”. His statement followed an extraordinary standoff with his own cabinet. Late into Wednesday evening, his aides were insisting that he would stay and fight despite a delegation of cabinet ministers urging him to go, and scores of frontbenchers resigning.

 To be fair (and that is difficult to do) not everything is negative: he has been very supportive of Ukraine in resisting Vladimir Putin’s aggression; and his determination to tackle the pandemic, albeit quite late. But the series of “Partygate” revelations in Downing Street and across Whitehall have infuriated large numbers of the British public who feel that those who make the rules should not break them.

 On Wednesday evening the Health Secretary Sajid Javid and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Rishi Sunak both resigned, releasing similar statements nine minutes apart that focused squarely on the issue of Johnson’s character. “The British people rightly expect integrity from their government,”  as Javid wrote in a statement.

 The mass of resignations required Boris to appoint new ministers. The revamped cabinet met on Thursday afternoon. An official readout said Johnson had “made clear the government would not seek to implement new policies or make major changes of direction, rather it would focus on delivering the agenda on which the government was elected. He said major fiscal decisions should be left for the next prime minister.”

 Even government insiders were taken aback at the sheer speed of his ultimate demise, after months of morale-sapping scandals, including Partygate and his botched bid to protect a backbench Tory MP who was found to have engaged in paid lobbying. One warned that had Boris not agreed to go, he was at risk of “becoming Trumpian”.

 His departure has left many questions unanswered: chief amongst them is who will succeed in replacing him in Number 10? It is too early to say. And will the post-Boris Tories manage to win the next general election to deal with rising energy prices, fueling the escalating cost-of-living crisis caused by Brexit, the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

 By contrast, Keir Starmer, the Labour opposition leader, has had a good week. Boris was fined for breaching lockdown rules during Partygate and Starmer was investigated for the same reason by Durham police in the north of England. He had said he would resign if he was also fined. The reason for that risky pledge was to compare himself – positively - to Johnson. Last Friday, with impeccable timing, Durham police announced that Starmer, and his deputy, would not be punished.

 It is difficult to avoid the grim conclusion that Britain’s political and economic future is deeply uncertain after Boris’s tumultuous short time in Number 10.

 

BY: IAN BLACK