The crisis of the British Conservative Party has worsened with the excesses of its own leader, Boris Johnson. It seems that one of the most successful ways out of this crisis would be to dismiss the prime minister
Former British Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson coined the phrase “a week is a long time in politics”, something that recent events have undoubtedly confirmed. Until very recently, it didn’t look like Boris Johnson was about to be evicted from 10 Downing Street, but the leadership problem in the Conservative Party has morphed into something far more serious. It has become a constitutional crisis as well as a political crisis for the prime minister.
Johnson was forced to apologize to Parliament on January 12, when he could no longer deny the clear evidence that his staff had gathered in a large group in the garden of 10 Downing Street while the citizens of the United Kingdom underwent a strict confinement.
The constitutional crisis has two aspects. The first is the matter of lies in Parliament. The prime minister alleges that the May meeting was a “working act” and that, therefore, it could be said that it “technically falls within the guidelines” of the moment.
This claim will have been met with great skepticism by many, particularly those who faced criminal charges for meeting others abroad during the period in question. At that time it was only allowed to meet with a person from outside the household when they were outside. In-person business meetings were only allowed when “absolutely necessary.”
If Johnson has been lying to Parliament by claiming that the rules were followed when they were not, it is a breach of the Ministerial Code. In the past, this breach has not only led to the dismissal of front-rank ministers, but even to the expulsion of Members of Parliament.
The Profumo case of 1963 is a clear example of this. When John Profumo, Secretary of State for War, lied to Parliament about his extramarital affair with Christine Keeler, he ended up having to leave Parliament. The scandal ended up bringing down the Government.
possible crime
The second constitutional issue relates to the police investigation of the Downing Street party during the May 2020 lockdown. During Prime Minister Question Time on 12 January, Johnson admitted that he attended this event. The meeting took place when the rest of the country was heavily locked down. He has claimed that the party was a “work event”, but if the police investigation finds that it did break the rules, it would mean that Johnson and the other participants were committing a crime. Lying to Parliament and breaking the rules of confinement are two crimes that lead to resignation.
That said, the political consequences of the crisis are likely to be the most important. The reaction of citizens is evident in a recent poll published in the Independent, which shows that two-thirds of voters think that Johnson should resign. Conservative MPs now know that Johnson is no longer an electoral winner and are likely to fear for the safety of their seats. For the party to recover, it will have to face this fact.
How other prime ministers lost their jobs
It is interesting to put the Johnson crisis in context by looking at the reasons why prime ministers have resigned in the past. Since the end of World War II, the UK has had 15 Prime Ministers. The most common reason for their resignation was losing the elections. This happened to Winston Churchill in 1945, Clement Attlee in 1951, Alec Douglas-Home in 1963, Edward Heath in 1974, Jim Callaghan in 1979, John Major in 1997 and Gordon Brown in 2010, all of whom lost. the general elections. We can add David Cameron to the list since he lost the EU referendum in 2016, and also Theresa May because she retired after losing the European Parliament elections in 2019.
The second most common reason for resigning was poor health. This explains why Churchill resigned his second term in April 1955. It also explains why his successor Anthony Eden resigned in January 1957. He had a nervous breakdown after the 1956 Suez Crisis, when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt after its president, Gamel Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal.
Another case was that of Harold Wilson, who surprised most observers by resigning in March 1976 at a time when there was no particular crisis. It is later discovered that he was worried about his memory loss and impending dementia, which eventually caught up with him. Therefore, it counts as a prime minister who resigned due to poor health.
The remaining two cases that do not fit into these categories are Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. The former was ousted by her own party in 1990, when the Conservatives’ support in the polls plummeted following the introduction of the ill-advised poll tax. Blair resigned after constant pressure from his successor, Brown, but his departure came amid his growing unpopularity after the Iraq war. It is arguable that he would have passed the baton had he not faced such public backlash.
P Whiteley, Author provided
An interesting question is the role of public opinion in all these resignations. The chart above looks at the approval ratings of the six prime ministers who did not resign immediately after losing the election. It does not include those who lost an election, as that is a clear sign that the electorate has rejected a leader.
Shows the approval ratings of these six prime ministers in the month they resigned, plus Johnson’s current approval rating. It is clear that Churchill was very popular when he resigned in April 1955 – his was a genuine case of illness leading to retirement. Eden, Macmillan, and Wilson all had respectable ratings, and Blair was less popular, although he still had a 35% approval rating.
Similarities Between Thatcher and Johnson
The ones that stand out the most are Thatcher and Johnson. However, there is an important difference between them. Both Thatcher and the Conservative Party were highly unpopular at the time of her resignation, with the party trailing far behind Labor in voting intentions. Currently, Johnson’s ratings are much worse than his party’s. According to a YouGov poll published just before Christmas, the Conservatives were just 6 percentage points behind Labor in voting intentions.
This is likely to change in the near future as the prime minister’s political woes drag his party down in the polls. That means there is a clear path out of trouble for Conservative MPs: impeach Johnson and hope for a recovery in the polls by electing a new leader. The party did it successfully in 1990 when it ousted Thatcher, so many will think there is a good chance of repeating the exercise this time.
This article has been published in The Conversation
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