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Boris Johnson endured more resignations than any other prime minister in history — and that was just on Wednesday. © Getty Images
Et tu Brutus? Or in Boris Johnson’s case, Et pretty much everyone — Rishi, Sajid, even Priti for goodness sake (non-aficionados of UK politics should Google them). The historic avalanche of resignations from Johnson’s government this week, or non-resigning colleagues telling him to quit, instantly brought to mind Margaret Thatcher’s ejection in 1990, precipitated by the House of Commons resignation speech of Geoffrey Howe, her former foreign secretary and chancellor of the exchequer.
I was a student and remember it vividly. It felt like a Shakespearean drama. A lot of knives ended up in Thatcher’s back. But it is the contrast that strikes me most keenly. Howe was just one man. He talked about continually having to wrestle with his conscience under her leadership and made an anodyne cricket analogy about how she sent her team into play with broken bats. That was weighty enough to trigger the leadership contest that eventually resulted in Thatcher’s downfall.
Johnson, on the other hand, endured more resignations than any other prime minister in history — and that was just on Wednesday. Yet he clung on until the last possible moment. The age of honour and accountability is long dead. Shamelessness, on the other hand, has been having a great run in British politics (and in the US too but let’s leave that to another time).
Every few days I appear on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, usually to talk about events here in the US. Occasionally the hosts (Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski) ask me about British politics, though I speak nowadays as a remote observer, albeit in a plausible accent. Once or twice they have remarked how good it must feel to be British when the only thing we worry about is having a prime minister who broke his own social distancing rules. Hosting a party, or appointing a serial groper called Pincher (Dickens would have blanched at that one), doesn’t quite compare to an attempted coup by an almost-fascist defeated president, they say. Of course, they are correct. But I am at pains to convince them that Johnson was more than just a bit of Monty Pythonesque light relief to the mortal drama haunting America.
The Johnson era has also been existential in its way. In the space of six years, Britain has gone from being a leading, hugely influential, member of the world’s largest economic block to a self-imposed outcast that is bent on picking fights with its former club — gratuitous ones that it can only lose. Johnson’s government also keeps threatening neighbouring Ireland’s hard won peace and stability. That isn’t funny. Nor is the fact that Britain went from being the second fastest growing member of the G7 to the slowest in the same window.
These are the obvious tolls. But it’s the damage that can’t be measured that costs the most. The narrow outcome to the Brexit referendum may well have hinged on a huge lie — an epic whopper — coined by Johnson, which promised an extra £350mn a week for the NHS if Britain left Europe. The premise was that Britain would be freed from the shackles of Eurocracy to ply the open seas of global free trade, which would lift growth and boost revenues. Quite the reverse has happened.
Johnson transgresses as effortlessly on the big stuff as the small stuff. He lies like bronchial patients cough. Eventually, like Al Capone being nailed by an accountant, it was the small stuff that did him in. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Johnson is still prime minister and wants to stay on as a caretaker, possibly until October. I doubt anyone else wants that. My hunch is that he will only leave Downing Street when dragged out by his feet. He has no shame, no dignity, no integrity, and not a shred of remorse for his legacy. I hope he has enjoyed his time in the sun. Please Lord now let him fade into history.