For a moment, it looked as if Boris Johnson would turn into a copy of Donald Trump after all. That was the day when his ministers not only resigned in droves, but also tried to convince their boss in direct talks that his cause was lost and that he had to go. The British prime minister balked, invoking the mandate of his commanding 2019 election victory and declaring that he wanted to tough it out. There was speculation that Johnson could persuade the Queen to dissolve Parliament and call a new election. Disconnected from reality, interested only in his own political survival, careless in his handling of the constitution – this indeed brought back memories of the former US president in his rampaging late phase.
But as it turned out, the Trumpist escalation did not happen after all. Boris Johnson announced his resignation from the posts of Conservative Party leader and prime minister. The situation has by no means been fully resolved. For one thing, the head of government wants to continue to run things until a successor is elected and appointed. Many of his party colleagues do not want that. Whatever happens, they will do their best to speed up the selection of candidates for the premiership. Firstly, because the United Kingdom, in the middle of an inflation crisis and while war is being waged in Europe, needs a government that is fully capable of action. But also because they no longer trust Boris Johnson and want to see him removed from 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence, as soon as possible.
The prime minister needs his party – and the party distrusts Johnson
One of the reasons that a destructive grand drama à la Trump has not taken place has to do with the nature and workings of the British state. This is not a presidential but a parliamentary democracy; the House of Commons is virtually all-powerful. The prime minister has no direct mandate from the people; rather, he owes his power to the support of his party and its MPs. Unless he has the continued principled consent of his followers in Parliament, the premier cannot govern. Populism can still be a promising strategy for winning votes under such circumstances; but a complete personalization of political power, as Trump attempted for a while, is out of the question in the United Kingdom and not even worth trying.
What about Boris Johnson himself? Was it just the political system, in its inexorable logic, that kept him from spiralling into lunacy and forced him back down to earth? Or did he himself possess enough sense to face the inevitable, however hard it may have been for him?
Creating a victim myth
The brief speech with which Johnson announced his departure in front of the familiar black door of his official residence left an ambivalent impression. There were phrases that sounded resentful and accusatory, such as when the outgoing PM called the idea of a change in leadership – in spite of a comfortable parliamentary majority – “eccentric” and said of the mounting criticism of him from London government circles, “But as we’ve seen in Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful, and when the herd moves, it moves.” These were remarks on which he could base a dubious political victim myth: the people’s tribune and maverick brought down by a nit-picking establishment of political lightweights.
But there were also passages which indicated that Johnson had palpably regained his inner freedom – for example, in his cheeky praise of the “Darwinian” selection process by which the Conservative Party was sure to appoint an outstanding new leader, or in his open, honest acknowledgement that he considered the loss of the premiership “painful”. In such turns of phrase, out of the power morass of recent days resurfaced something of Boris Johnson’s qualities, of his wit and generosity. Depending on how he acts in the coming days and weeks, the failed prime minister himself can help decide how bitterly or forgivingly the nation will remember him.
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