Boris Johnson

[Мастер]

Is he finished?

If so, who’s next?

Implications, if any, for IndyRef2?

[Heid the Ba]

I don’t think he’s finished until after COVID because who wants that poisoned chalice? Not sure about IndyRef.

[Richard A]

I think the jury's still out on whether Boris can survive. There are various online petitions going around, calling on him to resign - and not only Sir Keir Starmer but also some Conservative MPs have said he should go. But he's not the type to go voluntarily, so the question is - especially given the signs of the covid situation in the UK starting to improve - are any of the others ambitious enough to go for it right now. Quite apart from it still being a poisoned chalice, it could well yet emerge that all the likely contenders (and the front runners are said to be Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss) were also at the party.

As for Indyref 2, I don't think this makes any serious difference. The Conservatives are absolutely committed to preserving the Union - particularly of Great Britain. (Northern Ireland they, like most mainland Brits, are rather less bothered about - except when they think they need the Ulster Prods, which happens from time to time.). I'd be interested to hear Heid and Lianachan's views, but I personally think that Cameron only allowed Indyref 1 because he was confident he'd easily win it. (A lesson he appear not to have learned in 2016!) He bloody nearly lost his bet and was only saved at the last minute by a combination of significant additional devolution and Gordon Brown coming out of retirement to turn things round with a humdinger of a speech. There will have been Scots who voted No last time round and who also voted Remain - who might well now vote Yes as a route back to the EU. Plus Nicola Sturgeon - at least viewed from a distance - seems to have handled the pandemic a lot better than BoJo. So I don't think any of the Tories with half a chance of replacing Boris would even contemplate risking it.

Interestingly, Sir Keir has been trying to make the argument for Scotland staying in the Union - the Tories haven't bothered, they've simply said, "you had your chance, you lost, now piss off!" But then Labour have ambitions on trying to win back seats in Scotland while I suspect that the Tories have accepted that for them, it's a lost cause. They'll still put up candidates, but they won't seriously expect them to win, with maybe one or two exceptions.

My own view of Boris's future? Until I think it'll trigger an early election - which I'm not convinced of right now - I'm not that bothered. I just don't think any of the likely Tory candidates to replace him will be significantly better. Although true, they won't be any worse either - thankfully, both Dominic Raab and Priti Patel are nowhere in the polls and Michael Gove's not looking much better.

[Richard A]

Just saw this as the caption to a picture of Prince Andrew talking to Boris.

"So, first of all you weren't there, secondly if you were there you stumbled in by accident, thirdly once you were there you thought you were at work. If that fails, you were having a pizza with me at the time. I'll back you up. Good luck!"

[Arneb]

Letters seem sto beb trickling in at the 1922 Committee. The gentleman seems to find himself in a bit of a pinch.

Richard, don't you think the "In the name of God, go" line from David Davis was a slight bit over the top?

[Richard A]

Arneb, David Davis's line was a quote, albeit a slightly inaccurate one, from a House of Commons debate in 1940 following Germany's invasion of Norway. During that debate, which found the collapse of Norway to be the final proof of the complete failure of Neville Chamberlain's policy towards Hitler, an MP rounded on him and cried, "For the love of God, go!" In other words, "you have no credibility left - get out and make way for someone who has!" Davis was in effect saying, Johnson has lost credibility as Prime Minister to the same disastrous extent that Chamberlain did.

But ironically, a former Tory MP who left to join Labour may prove to be Boris's salvation. They're now saying that a lot of MPs who were thoroughly pissed off with BoJo are now even more pissed off at the treachery of Christopher Wakeford and so have been distracted from the plot to get rid of Boris. I guess we'll see.

[Arneb]

Richard, it was precisely because of this allusion that I suggested Davis' comment was a bit strong. It's not that the nation is facing utter defeat in war because of an irresponsible, lying toff visits a party while his own Queen mourns her husband sitting in a pew all by herself.

[Richard A]

Arneb, I see your point. On the other hand, although the consequences for the country are indeed hardly comparable, the leader's loss of credibility arguably is. And it's not just because of the partying and then lying about it - although the genuine anger felt by people who suffered considerably complying with the rules that Boris flaunted is serious. They think, "I didn't visit family because of the rules and I thought I was doing the right thing, but now seeing that those who set the rules were having a garden party, I feel like a mug," We might say, "no, you weren't a mug - you took a responsible decision not to put people at risk and the fact that others were less responsible doesn't change that." But that's not how a lot of them see it - and a lot of Tory MPs know it.

It's coming on top of Boris trying to change the rules to bail out an MP who seriously broke conflicts of interest rules. The blatant belief that the rules - including ones he himself devised - just don't apply to him. The issues are different but this could be as damaging to BoJo as Jeremy Corbyn's failure to deal effectively with the antisemitism scandal was in the Labour Party, I suspect a lot of Tory MPs see the comparison and don't want to wait until the next election and see the 2019 tables turned.

There's also, in my view, rather too much being made of a couple of embarrassing by-election results. If the party you support has a hefty majority in Parliament, by-elections are a useful and fairly cost-free way of showing its leader you're pissed off. You can stay home and let the opposition get their candidate in - or even vote for the opposition - knowing that if they do, your party will still be safely in government the next morning. So the voters of Shropshire North took the opportunity to kick BoJo in the nuts without any danger of letting Keir Starmer into Downing Street. Now if something like that happened in a general election, that's different - you don't know what may or may not be happening elsewhere in the country. In a by-election, you do. But still, there is a lot of talk that Tory MPs that swept into Parliament in 2019 are worried that if Boris remains at the helm, they may be swept out again next time - and that is dangerous for the PM.

[Lianachan]

Yes, Partygate is just the final straw for many people and comes on the back of consistently bad, uncaring government and corruption. Also yes, by-elections are a great and safe way for people to protest-vote and are often used in this way.