Dina Mahmoud (London)
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed his intention to remain in office, rejecting calls for his resignation, despite the increasing number of ministers resigning from his government, and more members of the House of Commons announcing the withdrawal of their support for it, in a crisis that is the most serious since he took office nearly three years ago.
In a session held by the British Parliament yesterday, Johnson said that he still had a “enormous mandate to continue in his position,” referring in this regard to the results of the legislative elections that were held in December 2019, which resulted in the Conservative Party winning its leadership, with an overwhelming parliamentary majority, amounting to It has limited dominance over 365 of the 650 seats that make up the council.
Johnson considered, during the stormy parliamentary session, that the British “do not want elections now,” and that this “is the moment when the government is expected to continue its work, and to carry out the tasks entrusted to it as well, not to withdraw,” in defiance of the mounting demands, by calling To hold early elections, which is now enjoying the support of a number of the ruling party’s deputies themselves, along with the leaders of the labor opposition.
The British Prime Minister’s statements coincided with the continuation of the wave of resignations from his government, which began yesterday with the sudden and simultaneous resignation of the Ministers of Treasury Rishi Sunak and Health Minister Sajid Javid, and included so far a large number of state ministers in the government, as well as lower-ranking government officials.
The spark of the recent resignations was Johnson’s admission that he had made a mistake by appointing Chris Pincher, who resigned days ago after being accused of harassment during a party, responsible in his government for the parliamentary discipline of Conservative MPs in Parliament.
A number of ruling party MPs in the British House of Commons said, in statements to local media, that the Pincher case was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, stressing the desire of “many” party members, that Johnson leave office, before the summer vacation. Parliament, which will start on the twenty-second of this month.
The British Prime Minister, in the first week of last June, survived a vote of no confidence that took place among the representatives of his party in Parliament, against the backdrop of mounting criticism of his government’s policies, following a series of scandals, including the disclosure of his participation in parties held in government headquarters. During the closing period he announced in Britain, in the spring of 2020 to limit the spread of the Corona epidemic, the “Conservatives” lost supplementary elections in a number of districts.
However, the narrow majority that enabled Johnson to avoid being ousted in that vote, seemed an indication of waning support for him in the Conservative camp, at a time when Britain is facing an imminent recession, with inflation rates reaching their highest levels in forty years, due to the high prices of fuel and materials. Amidst the continuation of labor strikes, the most prominent of which was a strike in the transport sector last month, which almost paralyzed movement in the capital for several days. Although the rules in force in the Conservative Party prohibit the use of the no-confidence mechanism only once every 12 months, Johnson’s opponents hope that they will be able to introduce amendments to these rules, by seeking the majority of seats in the party’s relevant committee, known In the name of the “1922 Committee”, through the elections scheduled for its members next week.
Nazem Al-Zahawi..neighbor of the Prime Minister
If British Prime Minister Boris Johnson can withstand the “tsunami” of resignations that has struck his government since yesterday evening, it will be credited to him, in the eyes of his citizens of Middle Eastern origins at least, that he made the way for a minister of Iraqi origin, one of the highest positions in the British government.
Many believe that the Treasury portfolio, which was entrusted to Nazim al-Zahawi, this fiftieth politician of Iraqi Kurdish origin, is the most important in the British government at all. There is no evidence of this, that the occupant is given House No. 11 in Downing Street, or the famous Downing Street in the heart of London, to become a neighbor of the Prime Minister, who lives in the building immediately next to it. But Al-Zahawi’s arrival in this high position does not come as a surprise to the followers of his strong and rapid rise in British political circles, since he was elected to the House of Commons in 2010, reinforced by the successes he had achieved in the previous years, in the world of finance and business, which was the most prominent Participation in the establishment of YouGov, a company specialized in conducting opinion polls on the Internet. After eight years as a member of Parliament for the Conservative Party, he was chosen by former Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018; To enter her government as Minister of State for Education and then for Industry.
However, the major shift in the life of that immigrant, whose family fled Iraq in the late 1970s, came in late 2020, when he was chosen as a minister responsible for managing the file of distributing vaccines against the emerging coronavirus, this time in Johnson’s government.
The success achieved by Nazim Al-Zahawi in dealing with this thorny file led to him being assigned the education portfolio after one year, before he became Minister of the Treasury, in a move that he himself might not have dreamed of, when a child arrived in London, at the age of eleven. .
Assuming this position would bring the refugee boy, whose teachers once told his parents that he might struggle to learn English after initially stumbling in it, on the brink of becoming Johnson’s likely successor, should the latter eventually have to Bowing to the voices of those currently calling for his resignation.
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