A rogue prime minister has been convicted of lying to parliament by a committee containing his party’s majority. The UK has not seen anything like this in the 300 years since the role was established. This is our Watergate: the attempt to downplay it shows that something is wrong with the Johnson regime.
When rumors of a Downing Street party started circulating, several people I had worked with there called to express surprise. “Who takes pictures of themselves at work?” someone asked. We’ve already heard about Johnson’s sloppy approach to governing: he rarely finishes his red box and leaves top-secret documents lying around. But the 10th was an alcohol-fueled carnival with staff evading the police with suitcases full of booze? It sounds like a king’s court whose lockdown rules condemn people to dying alone.
If that sounds prim – and many of Johnson’s allies do – it’s because of the Boris effect. His lengthy resignation letter was a rant about teenage self-pity. His followers are now hunting down one Conservative member, Sir Bernard Jenkin, on a committee that unanimously agreed he should be suspended for more than 10 days, the threshold for a by-election. Jenkin was a Brexiteer long before Boris: it wasn’t a “witch hunt” by Remainers, it was Parliament’s staunch opposition to wrongdoing.
The establishment doesn’t like Brexiteers like Jenkin or free thinkers like Sir Charles Walker, a Conservative backbencher who has vehemently argued the mental health toll of lockdowns during the pandemic. damage. This independent-minded person is not sociable and often has a bad temper. But our democracy needs them. As parliamentary courts, they performed their public duties.
One of the most worrying statements in the committee’s report is its assertion that “there has been an attempt, seemingly in concert,” to undermine its credibility. Its Labor leader, Harriet Harman, is a senior MP who has been accused of tribalism for months. But the ex-prime minister’s condemnation goes beyond party politics to the heart of our democracy. By pushing back against Johnson’s attempts to blame it and imposing a 90-day suspension on him, MPs are trying to strengthen parliament’s hand against would-be outlaws.
This past week has brought into focus things that have taken me a long time to realize. Johnson wasn’t just a brazen renegade, a narcissist too lazy to do the job he’d wanted to do his whole life. He can also act like a thug. I was struck last year by how nervous some Conservative MPs were about serving on committees that might have to investigate him. You don’t have to be a genius to think he lied, his defense – no one can read his mind so it can’t be proven he deliberately misled Parliament – is weak. It’s not just an embarrassment of condemning previous leaders; they fear for their own careers.
Johnson sullied almost everyone in his orbit: Allegra Stratton, filmed sheepishly thinking about how to cover up the party; Simon Keyes, the thoroughly compromising cabinet minister; Lord David Brownlow, the self-made man, at Johnson’s the shouting on the wallpaper; and the ministers who regularly march into broadcast studios in droves to defend the defenseless, only to find that their leaders have hung them up to dry.
The mask slipped off. In resigning rather than staying to contest the by-election, Johnson appeared to lack confidence in his claimed ability to win votes. In attacking Rishi Sunak instead of apologizing for his failure, he seeks revenge on a man who showed him a competent government. For destabilizing his own party, he won’t be thanked by Conservative MPs fearful of losing their seats at the next election.
He will never leave quietly. I’ve heard he’s now considering running as an independent for next year’s mayoral election in London. Sadly, he was very good at the job — and some of the people on his honor list were people who worked for him at the time. He just never rose to the heights needed to be Prime Minister.
But this time, he saw the wrong room. Talk to people who have been prevented from holding the hand of a dying loved one during Covid, or whose children are scarred by exam cancellations and school closures. We followed the rules that he and his assistants did not. They fooled us.
The lack of an apology offered and the failure to capture public outrage suggested Johnson had lost his political touch. Those who still think it was just a piece of birthday cake should read the testimony of one of Officer 10’s appendices to the report. This describes how “Friday Wine Hour” parties (starting at 4pm – great value for taxpayers) have been held throughout the pandemic. Staff were told to watch out for cameras outside when leaving the building.
Conservative MPs are partly to blame. They never liked Johnson, but backed him to beat Jeremy Corbyn – and in retrospect, it wasn’t hard to beat him. Amber Rudd, who resigned from Johnson’s cabinet, once said he was “not someone you want to drive you home at the end of the evening”. But few realize how recklessly he can drive, and how far off the road.
Claims that Johnson was a martyr are loud, but few. The circus may be on for a while, but we’ve seen it through.
camilla.cavendish@ft.com