In medieval Japan, samurai who fell out of favor with their feudal lords were offered a sword to kill themselves honorably. In contemporary England, Conservative leaders who fall out of favor with the party (like Thatcher or May) are handed a glass of cognac and a gun to put them out of their misery. “The problem, if we do it with Boris Johnson, is that he would drink the brandy and shoot the messenger with the revolver,” says a Tory MP.
After the queen’s jubilation, with its street parties and explosion of that nostalgic English nationalism of an imperial past of which nothing remains but Gibraltar, the Malvinas and many shadows, the danger of a confidence vote hangs over Johnson again. In his constituency, lawmakers have felt voters’ anger at the prime minister over parties during the pandemic, his lack of respect for the truth, and his tendency to take people for fools. Not to mention inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, problems he doesn’t know what to do about.
They also don’t know what the Tories should do with their leader. The pile of letters expressing distrust in him is again quite high, amid rumors that they are about to add the 54 necessary to submit their continuity to the parliamentary group. Discontent has been building steadily since the release of the partygate report. And in the event that the magic figure is not reached this week, it could be reached after the by-elections on the 21st in Wakefield (Yorkshire) and Tiverton (Devon), if the Conservatives lose those seats. The drums of the final judgment sound again.
The defenestration of the leader is – after cricket – the favorite sport of the Tories, who have without nonsense killed, among others, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. While Labor often retains its leaders even after its frequent electoral bumps (the soul of the party is to be in opposition), the Conservatives do not hesitate to assassinate their own even while in power if they think they have a better chance of winning. keep it. And in that dilemma they are now.
Has Johnson become a liability just two and a half years after winning an outright majority? Is now a good time to kill him, right in the middle of the legislature, in time for a successor to become popular before the next election? Or would he seem irresponsible in the midst of the Ukraine war and a deepening economic crisis? What do people think? The polls are not good, as they give Labor an eight-point lead and Boris’s personal popularity is rock bottom. That folksy and informal character that was funny has turned against him. Virtues have become vices. The jeers directed at him in St. Paul’s Cathedral on his arrival at the jubilee mass are a terrible premonition.
If there is a motion of censure, it would take 180 votes to unseat Johnson, and he thinks he has more deputies in his pocket than that. He says that he will continue even if he wins by the minimum. Samurai committed suicide to preserve his honor, and even Thatcher took the poison. Both of these things strike the current Tory leader as supine nonsense.
