“Destroyed” and “close to tears”. So it would appear Boris Johnson in the last few hours to those who have had the opportunity to meet the prime minister, engaged in desperate attempt to reject resignation requests and hang on to his premiership. With large sections of the Conservative Party that now seem oriented to sacrifice it and the center-right press merciless in giving an account of the ‘partygate‘, the latest, perhaps fatal scandal, Johnson would be playing his last cards to avoid defenestration.
According to a Telegraph background, Johnson allegedly summoned a Downing Street, for a series of face to face meetings, the ‘rebel’ deputies, who have already announced their intention to discourage him. It is about twenty so-called ‘backbencher‘, second row deputies, or’ peones’, according to the Italian definition, all newly elected in 2019 in the colleges of central and northern England, the so-called ‘Red Wall’, traditionally Labor.
They are the ones who gave birth to what the British press called the ‘pork pie plot’, from the name of the quiche that is produced in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, where Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, one of the leaders of the anti Johnson rebellion, has her own boarding school. About ten of these deputies have already sent letters to the 1922 Committee, the body of the Conservative Party that brings together the backbenchers, asking a vote of no confidence in the premier. Another ten deputies have announced that they could do so by tonight.
The revolt of the ‘peons’ is difficult to stem
Then there is, according to the background, another group of rebel deputies, who may have already sent their letters. In all, the requests for an internal count arrived at Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, they could already be from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of 40. To start the no-confidence procedure 54 requests are needed. This is a number that could be reached in the coming days, should new details emerge on the banned parties of the premier and his staff in full pandemic, with new, embarrassing apologies from Johnson.
According to what transpires, the premier, in face-to-face meetings in Downing Street, would have averted the rebels not to proceed further with their plans. But Johnson’s weapons of persuasion, for the ruthless rules of British politics, forged by the single-member majority system, may not be enough. The fear of the rebels, seen the polls rewarding Labor by Keir Starmer, traditional holders of those colleges, is precisely to lose the seat in the next elections, due to Johnson’s fluctuating leadership.
It is for this reason, it is reported in the background, that the premier and the ministers who remain loyal to him would have used an approach with the rebels ‘carrot and stick’. On the one hand, the promise to invest more public funds in their colleges, to avert the risk of a quick Labor takeover. On the other hand, the threat to freeze funds in the event of treason. But this move may not be enough. In addition to political divisions, there now seems to be a personal issue between the premier and the rebel backbenchers. To do increase the anger of the peons it would also have been a scornful comment leaked Tuesday from Downing Street, in which the rebels were described as “nobody’s”.
‘For God’s sake, go away!’
To complicate the picture, for Johnson, the defection of Christian Wakeford, a Conservative deputy from the Bury South college, also elected in 2019, who today announced that he wants to leave the Tories to join Labor. This is a rare event in British politics, little inclined to parliamentary transformation.
But the prime minister’s black day she will be remembered above all for that “go away, in the name of God”, delivered in the Hall of Commons by David Davies, a former Conservative Minister for Brexit, who was once an ally of Johnson. A historical quote that reminded some of Oliver Cromwell, who spoke those words in 1653 to the ‘Long Parliament’, which he considered unable to manage the affairs of the nation.
But most have grasped the most recent reference to Neville Chamberlain, the conservative prime minister among the most reviled in British history. At the beginning of the Second World War, when the policy of ‘apeasement’ with Nazi Germany was now disastrously collapsed, with those words, Chamberlain was invited by the Conservative MP Leo Amery to step aside. Soon after, Winston Churchill became the new prime minister. And for Johnson there could be no more comparison humiliating for his possible exit from the scene.
(by Marco Liconti)
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