A wounded Boris Johnson clings on to power, but a death knell is ringing

Boris Johnson may appear unkillable, having survived a motion of no-confidence by his own party, but the clock is now running on his rotten, beleaguered prime ministership. Forty per cent of Tory MPs don’t want Johnson as leader. His backers confidently briefed journalists that they would keep rebel numbers below 100. In the end, 148 voted against him — more than many rebels had hoped.

Emboldened Johnson opponents — defying any attempts by Johnson supporters to “move on” — are vowing to continue destabilising a man now defined almost entirely by incessant lying, shabby standards of conduct and rule-breaking — all encapsulated in the Partygate scandal that led to Johnson being fined for breaking his own lockdown rules and partying in No. 10.

The result is the worst outcome possible for both the Tories and the UK while the country grapples with a serious energy crisis, Russia’s assault on Ukraine, and the potential expansion of NATO to Sweden and Finland.

“Partygate” has come to define Boris Johnson and his political style: a breezy indifference not merely to rules but standards of decency (he and his staff partied while ordinary Britons weren’t permitted to farewell loved ones), flagrant lying about his own behaviour, including misleading Parliament, and constant spinning that everything was fine and his government and the country were moving on.

But the spinning has been in vain. Johnson’s big polling lead has steadily dwindled since his big win over Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. After a recovery last summer, the Conservative’s poll lead continued to fall, and Labour under Keir Starmer overtook them at the end of 2021. Since then, Labour has maintained a steady lead, enjoying a 6% swing in local council elections in May that saw the Tories lose nearly 500 seats across the UK. The Tories are now expected to lose the Yorkshire seat of Wakefield in a byelection landslide in two weeks — a crucial indicator that the so-called “red wall” of northern seats that swung to the Tories in 2019 is breaking down as rapidly as it was built.

As former top Johnson adviser — and now sworn enemy — Dominic Cummings observed, attention will now turn within the Tories to either changing the rules that will prevent Johnson from facing another vote of no-confidence for one year, or a countdown will begin to June 2023. It also reduces the time the Tories have to reverse their poor polling before an election due in 2024, when the Tories will have been in power, either in majority or minority, for fourteen years. “The MPs will know this doesn’t resolve anything and it’s a disastrous outcome,” Cummings wrote, “and even if/when he is removed his successor has an even harder job for 2024, starting in an even worse position with even less time.”

While Johnson has assiduously worked to elevate defence and the threat of Russia on his agenda (while doing little to address the close connections he and much of his party have with Russian oligarchs) as a counter to Partygate — the result leaves the UK with the worst of both worlds: a wounded PM on a deathwatch while the European security environment deteriorates and NATO embarks on a major expansion to incorporate Finland and Sweden over the wishes of Turkey.

There only awaits now the emergence of a substantial alternative to Johnson to bring his chaotic leadership to an end. Jeremy Hunt, whom Johnson defeated to replace Theresa May, had previously said it would be unwise to change leaders during the Ukraine crisis, but urged a vote against Johnson yesterday and is the odds-on favourite to replace him. Between now and then, however, lies an extended period of instability and uncertainty.