Members of his cabinet and party representatives tried to convince him of the futility of entrenchment this Wednesday evening
Conservative ministers eventually lost faith in Boris Johnson and called for the resignation of the head of the United Kingdom’s government, who was still resisting at his official Downing Street residence on Wednesday night. Sajid Javid, who resigned the day before to continue as head of the Department of Health, gave the “enough is enough” signal in a devastating speech in parliament in Westminster. The majority of Conservative MPs supported the uprising, which gave way to various maneuvers to overthrow their leader and chief executive.
Johnson has lost minute-by-minute support since Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid delivered the Economy and Health portfolios respectively the previous day. Twenty-four hours later, about 40 layoffs from government posts are recorded, with at least three ministries without staff at the Secretary of State level. At the same time, a majority of delegates eventually withdrew trust in the “Prime Minister” after nearly a week of lies and misinformation about Johnson’s relationship with his political ally and alleged sexual predator, Chris Pincher.
Still, sources in Downing Street indicated to British media on Wednesday evening that Johnson does not want to give up and “wants to fight on”. And in a surprising change of course, revealed by the BBC, the Prime Minister fired Michael Gove from cabinet, hitherto responsible for the regional economic leveling strategy, among other ministerial portfolios, and his lieutenant in the Brexit referendum campaign, from 2016.
Earlier, a delegation of cabinet members descended on Downing Street in a concerted effort to persuade the president to abandon ship. The scene was reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s last hours at the head of government nearly 32 years ago. The “Iron Lady” decided to confront the ministers one by one, convinced that this would ensure their support in the fight against her leadership, but the strategy failed. The prime minister, who bestowed three electoral victories to the Conservative Party between 1979 and 1987, left the famous London residence in tears on November 28, 1990.
This Wednesday, ‘The Telegraph’, the newspaper where Johnson worked before taking office, reproduced an old edition of the tabloid ‘Daily Express’ as a tribute to the Thatcher decade. “What have you done?” asks the wrap of the historic issue, which was shared by the prime minister’s supporters, according to the conservative daily political correspondent, Ben Riley-Smith. The Tory president apparently adopted his predecessor’s strategy of looking after his ministers individually, fighting until the last minute with the ministerial team that went to Downing Street to demand his resignation.
But Johnson resisted his position at the last minute. “I will continue with my work. I have a responsibility to comply with the 2019 manifesto, even though there are many people who want to try to overthrow me,” he said defiantly to the House of Commons Joint Committee, which questioned him for two hours in a session that usually the end of each parliamentary semester. He also rejected the proposals for resignation launched during the prime minister’s questioning session, which is held every Wednesday. “With the economic pressures the country is suffering, with Europe at war, now is not the time to retire, but to continue working,” he reiterated.
The committee’s chairman, conservative Bernard Jenkin, withdrew from the prime minister an apparent promise that he would dissolve parliament and call early elections if the group withdrew its support. “It will not happen unless people ignore the principle that history teaches us that respecting the electoral mandate is the best way to maintain political stability,” he said. In the same session, he declined to answer the question that keeps the crisis in suspense: Will Johnson step down if he loses the trust of his deputies?
The Prime Minister faces a defining moment in his three years as Conservative leader and head of the British government. He won a no-confidence vote last month with 59% of the vote and is in principle safe from a similar action until June 2023. But the influential faction is preparing to change internal rules in the coming hours or weeks and plans to force a second confidence vote before the summer break, which starts on July 21. You need the support of 52 Tory deputies to launch the censure motion and that line has already been crossed.
The prime minister is confronting the storm by recalling the “colossal mandate” given to him by the electorate in 2019 and ironically in the morning noting that he has a large “supply of qualified personnel ready” to replace the squad of positions who have left the government. Labor leader Keir Starmer likened the situation to a “sunken ship escaping the rats”.
Source: La Verdad
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