Political speculation abounds on whether Johnson can survive. It is apparent that the consensus is that he cannot. But let me offer a word of caution. The assumption is being made that a man who has refused to comply with every convention in life that governs good behaviour will do the honourable thing and step down if and when the Conservative party decides that he is no longer to be its leader. I think that there may be some naïveté implicit in this assumption.
The first thing to note is that the 1922 committee cannot bring down a prime minister. All it can do is dismiss a leader of the Conservative party.
It has, of course, been the convention that the leader of the party is the prime minister when the Tories are in office, but nothing actually says that must be the case, and there have been periods when the leader of the Conservative party has not been prime minister. For example, John Major quit as Tory leader in the 1990s and put himself up for re-election, but remained prime minister throughout the period. It is entirely possible that Johnson will ignore the 1922 and, even, any new leader of the party in that case and say that he was elected prime minister in 2019, and that he intends to continue in that office, whatever they might do.
Trump has already demonstrated what a corrupt populist might do when determined to remain in power. It is very clear that Johnson is desperate to remain in office.
Candidly, it is easy to see why. What are his prospects when he has gone now? I can hardly imagine that the Telegraph will give him his old job back writing columns for £250,000 a year. Who too will want to hear his ramblings on the after dinner circuit when his joke is now over? He does, however, now have a very young family, and a wife with an apparent taste for expensive wallpaper. The man may be desperate.
In that case should we assume he will go just because Sue Gray finds against him, and the Tories abandon him? Or will he have to be forced out by a vote of no confidence in the House?
We are in uncharted territory here. What happens when a prime minister loses the support of his party during office is not known simply because it has never happened before in this way. Previous incumbents have resigned rather than face the ignominy of being forced out.
Nor do we know, if Johnson was forced to face a vote of no confidence in the House, whether or not the Queen would then have to require that a general election take place or could simply pass the premiership on to the next leader of the Conservative party.
This saga is not over yet is all that I am saying. Johnson may yet fight an ugly rearguard action.
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“This saga is not over yet”
And I am enjoying ever minute of it!!!!!!!!!
The monarch undoubtedly has the power to dismiss the prime minister, if they lose the confidence of the house of commons but refuse to resign, and call for someone else who does have that confidence (a new leader of the majority party, for example, but a new leader needs to be selected: typically the old leader stays on as caretaker until that happens). The ability to call a general election is still constrained by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, but losing a vote of confidence is one way that could happen.
If Johnson is determined to mark his place in the history books (and not in a good way) then creating another constitutional crisis of this nature is certainly one way to do it. The Queen will not be amused.
But you assume she would have the confidence to use that power – and to date she has never been called upon to do so – politics sorted it all out for her
Hence my point
We end up with some sort of constitutional crisis if Johnson tries to carry on as prime minister for any length of time after he has been ejected as leader of his party. I can’t see how it would end well for him, either way.
He might carry on until he loses a vote of confidence, which could bring the government down, but perhaps not if phrased as a motion of no confidence in the prime minister himself and not the whole government.
If he loses the leadership, and loses a vote of confidence, and still refuses to resign, and there is another Conservative leader ready and waiting, with a majority in the commons, then I think there would be little criticism of the Queen sending Johnson his cards and calling for the new person. In those circumstances, there would be considerably more criticisim if the Queen failed to act. (I wonder how good their personal relationship is: does she see through him?)
I hope you are right..
I agree that she has the power but will she use it. The Queen clearly failed in her constitutional duty to protect ‘her subjects’ from a rogue executive when she allowed Johnson to illegally prorogue parliament
Would it be possible to have a simple method of sharing your posts, please? I have probably missed something, but copy and paste is the only method I can see. If this is some absolutely embarrassing ignorance on my part, I am old enough to take it on the chin and celebrate a solution to this irritating problem!
There is a share button at the bottom of each post…
The share button seemed to have disappeared sometime ago…..unless I’m being very stupid….. I always copy and paste now.
It does only share the link I admit, not the text
The most likely outcome by which Johnson clings on is that there is a challenge to his leadership of the Party and in the No Confidence vote he wins 51% and soldiers on. Teresa May did this for a while but Johnson might tough it out for a full year until the next challenge.
You observe that PM and Party Leader are separate jobs so the questions I have are:
If 49% of Tory MPs have no confidence how many would back this up in a Parliamentary vote?
If they did, would that mean a General Election of could another senior Tory form a government that could command confidence of the House?
Also, what role does Cabinet play? The PM is “primus inter pares” and in modern times we see a lot of “primus” but what about “pares”? Can the Cabinet remove a Prime Minister?
I think the Cabinet could
But they are wimps
Its pretty certain he will fight a rearguard action. After all he is just a con-man and con-men cannot admit defeat. As long as he’s still there he’s winning and that’s all that matters.
Those parts of the conservative parliamentary party – about a third? – who support his overall style of “rules are for little people not for us”, want him to get away with it, unless they get an alternative from their own wing, which would probably be worse for us.
The rest will jump whichever way their paymasters tell them. Its the big party donors we should be looking at. Membership and local party worries have always meant little to the party hierarchy.
Another point, are we really in the position when the say so of a civil servant can effectively dismiss the PM? Something rotten in the deep state of UK…
While I don’t disagree that Johnson is capable of anything that he sees to be in his own interest, I am not entirely sure that your analysis is right.
Johnson was not elected prime minister in 2019. The Tories won the most seats, he was leader and the Queen asked him to form a government.
The analogy with John Major does not stand up – John Major quit as leader of the Tories and remained as Prime Minister pending the selection of a replacement leader with the agreement of the party.
I assume that, if there is a vote of no confidence and he ‘refuses to go’, the Cabinet will resign en masse and the Queen will be asked to get someone else to form a government. There again that assumes a degree of morality in the Cabinet which may not exist.
And so you get to the point that I reach…
Agree. Mendacious Fatberg only ever looks after “No 1” – himself. He will almost certainly go down fighting & will twist & turn to stay as PM. All this whilst the country goes to wrack & ruin. But this is of no consequence to Mendacious Fat who true to his tory roots is only interested in power for power’s sake. Once that is gone only a husk will remain (but was there ever anything else but a husk?)..
David “In the name of God – Go” Davis admits he has not sent a letter to Brady calling for Johnson to go. Her is waiting until after Gray’s report. And then? Cold feet? Failure of nerve? Meantime, Johnson will be fighting hard, twisting arms, blackmailing, bribing. He will stay.
Perhaps Sunak can find a nice little sinecure for him with one of his banking mates at the same salary?
‘May yet’?
Johnson has his adherents and proponents and some very capable ones too. They’ve already been I think operating as you describe already.
In many ways the fate of some of them are tied to Johnson’s fate; they have no option but to fight.
I have thought for a long time that Johnson will try to hang on for as long as possible. I don’t think loosing a Tory party vote of confidence will be enough to make him resign.
One interesting scenario is that he could be deposed as party leader and yet his government could win a vote of no confidence in the House. If he is deposed it will be because enough Tories see him as an electoral liability, and think that his carrying on will cause more damage to the party. If they get rid of him sooner rather than later the next leader may be able to disown his legacy and start to reverse some of the political damage he has done. However if he refuses to resign then, faced with the possibility of an immanent general election, these same Tories may vote for the government in a confidence motion in the House.
Nothing says the prime minister has to be the leader or even a member of a political party, or for that matter a member of either the Commons or the Lords, or, as a constitutional lawyer I am related to likes pointing out, nothing says the prime minister has even to be human.
The only qualification seems to be the prime minister commands the confidence of the House, however, as far as I can see, and no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong, this too is a convention. In any case it is notable that very little is normally done to check that this is the case. Since 1902 there have been fifteen mid term Prime Ministerial successions, in only one of them, that of Churchill succeeding Chamberlain, was there a vote of confidence in the new government.
Thanks
Forgive my obtuseness here, Bernard, but is your relation implying that the PM could be an alien so long as said alien was a member of the party in question? If so, surely said alien could do a better job than Johnson. I hesitate suggesting (s)he could do worse.
I first remember my relative making the remark when discussing the Roman Emperor Caligula’s plan, which would probably have been carried out had he not been assassinated, to make his favourite horse, Incitus, a Consul. I have no idea how good a Prime Minister Caligula’s horse would make but it would be an improvement on one who takes Caligula as a role model.
Given what I hear about his behaviour and whats happening at the moment I do wonder if he will be ’employable’ after his Prime Ministership ends
Under Johnson, all that is solid melts into air.
It’s clear that every country needs a written Constitution, doesn’t it? Formal organisations of all kinds have them. But a country doesn’t?
In the UK, the reliance on precedence, good behaviour, and the ultimate authority of a monarch who doesn’t actually have any real clout just isn’t working any more, is it?
The Conseravtive Party has finally lost its head, and the plot. Peter Bone MP on BBC Newsnight last night, seeking to defend the indefensible Johnson no matter what, actually proposed that the British people don’t care about parties or rules, because they know the PM “saved billions of lives across the world” (about 15:45 minutes in). I rest my case.
Insane
No surprise with Bonehead, as he is extraordinarly stupid even by contemporary Tory party standards. But what depresses me is that a lot of the public now take the attitude ‘oh, they’re all corrupt, as bad as one another’, what do you expect?’. My neighbour said this yesterday, and a prominent local businessman who owns a very succesful (and very good) independent cinema writing in its program recently defended Johnson on these kinds of grounds, and I quote:
“Aren’t we all enjoying this Boris-kicking game his so-called friends and peers are playing. Bereft of anything new to say – or anything worth hearing- ever; ……As Sir Keith’s oppostion bench huffs its disgust by ‘opposing’ events so old that everyone there…has long forgotten”
This kind of cynical nonsense is what Bone and others like him including Johnson are counting on. Starmer and Labour get plenty of (often) justified criticism on this blog, but to equate them with the appalling Johnson and the morally bankrupt party that chose him as leader is stupid, lazy and very dangerous. That is another of the routes to fascism in my opinion. The logic here is why bother voting, why, in fact, have any elected representartives at all? Disgust and contempt for one set of politicians may be justified, but to include all in the same breath?
Even by Bone’s standards, he was off the scale last night. Multiple ludicrous claims. I’ll bet that a majority of the U.K. people would not know where Ukraine is but they all know about the parties. Just anecdotally, barely a conversation with friends and acquaintances passes without some exasperated comment about the parties, regardless of their politics. The idea that most of the public care more about Ukraine than parties was truly nuts, and then he went further over the top by claiming that it was Peter Kyle who was lying. Plus the obligatory dig at the BBC, ignoring the fact that the usual Tory rags are putting out the same, if not even more critical messages.
There have been many ‘throw things at the TV’ moments in the last couple of years, but this might have been the most threatening to our TV. Might have to put some chicken wire in front of it, Blues Brothers style.
Is it me or is the Met investigation into No 10 parties a deliberate delaying tactic to give Boris more time before the release of Sue Grey’s report?
Part of Boris’s rearguard action perhaps??????
Yes
Or Sue Grey has discovered that The Met had known about the parties all along. (How could they not have known????)
They are now investigating to cover over the fact that they should have done so at the time of the parties.
If The Met investigate and conclude that no crime was committed, it will get The Met off the hook and this will undermine Sue Grey’s conclusions.
Johnson may wriggle out of this one yet!!!! Be interesting how the MSM report on it all.
Johnson will not go unless he is defenestrated. He is incapable of admitting any wrong-doing or failures and has surrounded himself with loyal cronies whose hands are all dipped in the same blood.
The bad news is that he will continue to damage the country – it’s citizens, institutions and reputation. The good news is that he will trash the Tory’s reputation for years to come.
Well, the circus takes another twist today with Dick doing a u-turn and Grey’s whitewash being delayed by weeks. The only thing that is certain is utter governmental paralysis. The Sky political correspondent reports Tory MPs avoiding press interviews! Johnson’s attempt at showboating his leadership skills taking us to war over Ukraine has failed to produce the required diversion, although Biden may yet create the opportunity to put politics on hold while we all wave our flags in support of “our boys” (do not discount the possibility). I suppose the question is whether Dick has realised this is the only way to allay suspicions that she made a political decision not to investigate in the first place or whether the government decided that the only option left was a delay to give more time to subvert the opposition. The English have taken so long to wake up, perhaps it’s a fair bet they can’t stay awake long enough to still be angry when Dick’s whitewash is followed by Grey’s!
While I fully expect the prime minister to stay until he has no other choice, I think he will go then, rather than have to be manhandled out or anything like that. I would be surprised if he resigns this week after Sue Gray publishes her report, in that case It will take longer than that.
Before we even find out what will happen to Johnson, Sky News reports as follows: “Boris Johnson’s official spokesman added that discussions are ongoing to decide what is suitable to publish’ [of Sue Gray report] before the Metropolitan Police probe concludes.”
Notice here the deep problem with the Sue Gray Report ever being chosen to do this work. Who decides what is “suitable to publish”? Do not assume it is Sue Gray independently. The decision, in the context of constitutional convention, presumably is the PM (I would require ‘chapter and verse’, rigorously produced, to disprove that proposition). Work that one out.
Let’s see….
Boris Johnson should have known that he had no scope at all for straying off the straight and narrow. He’s made far too many enemies over the last few years.
Most of the vitriol against him has come about from the Brexit issue. The Labour Right and Lib Dems, who are usually hard pushed to disagree with anything the Tories do, hate him for that with a passion. Add in those of his own party who, despite what they may say in public, think he’s made a hash of the Brexit negotiations and he was always on the edge. He just needs that little extra push and he’ll be gone.
The sooner the better!
I don’t think a little extra push will be enough. James O’Brien recently called him a “Teflon Prime Minister”, but when it comes to staying in office I think he is more of a “Superglue Prime Minister”.