Boris survives. What now?
I suppose a little less Downing Street drama would be too much to ask for.
This is the text of my op-ed on the Boris Johnson confidence vote.
Boris Johnson has survived a confidence vote in his leadership.
He was always going to. Less a fiendishly-designed plot than a rebellion almost stumbled into, the confidence motion came too soon and, unhelpfully, when Tory MPs were still basking in the afterglow of the Platinum Jubilee festivities. Four days of national revelry, with millions taking to the streets clutching Union Jacks, was hardly the ideal backdrop to a vote premised on unconfined public fury at the Prime Minister.
As it happens, the public is furious at Boris Johnson and perfectly entitled to be. While he kept them quarantined in their own homes, at risk of arrest for taking two strolls in the one day, the Prime Minister and his senior officials were necking champagne and wine in the corridors of power.
The man who set the law broke it and was issued with a fixed-penalty notice for his troubles. Not only this, but when first confronted about Downing Street parties, he told MPs a version of events contradicted by subsequent revelations.
The Prime Minister will have breathed a sigh of relief when the results were announced but not as deep a sigh as Nicola Sturgeon. In public, she is happy to say Boris is unfit for office. In private, she wants him to cling on as long as possible. He is the ideal bogeyman for the SNP: arrogant, posh, Tory, English and gaffe-prone. The Nationalists could not ask for a better face of the Union.
Let’s be honest: Many in Scotland long ago made up their minds about Boris Johnson. They see him as a scion of privilege, a symbol of entitlement, a lifelong failer-upwards, and proof that ruthlessness is its own reward. They look at the unkempt hair and despatch box theatrics and see an unserious man in very serious times.
This is a problem electorally in Scotland because the demographics the Tories traditionally targeted (professionals, businesspeople, suburbans) seem to dislike the man more than most. The Tories’ new target group (blue-collar Unionists) are more divided, with some appreciating his impish charm and facility for making journalists, experts and lefty celebrities seethe with rage. But the message from the polls and the polling stations is indisputable: Boris is a net negative in Scotland.
A net negative for the Scottish Tories but his impact on the Union is more difficult to quantify. Constitutional politics are not Johnson's métier. They are complicated, slow-moving and largely without instant reward. Devolution has rendered day-to-day Scottish politics as remote to many Westminster politicians as political goings-on in Dublin or Paris. The Prime Minister is not known to immerse himself in the crucial details or keep well-read on the key debates. Nor does he give the impression of being keen to correct these shortcomings. For Boris, Scotland is a problem to be avoided at all costs.
This might be one of his strengths when it comes to the Union, albeit a wholly inadvertent one. While the Johnson government has rolled out direct spending that bypasses Holyrood and strained to convince the Scottish Government of the merits of freeports, its marquee Scotland policy is saying No to another referendum on independence. Every time the Prime Minister does so, the Scottish political establishment reaches for its fainting couch and its favoured scribes pen a flurry of columns about what a terrible offence this is to Scotland, how frightfully it oversimplifies the issue, and why oh why can't Downing Street see the merits of federalism.
The prime ministers who inflict the most damage on the Union are always the ones who insist on doing things. Instead of leaving well enough alone, they feel a need to meddle, reform, innovate and preempt. This is what drove Tony Blair to set up devolution and David Cameron to vastly expand it. Since Boris wants to avoid the subject altogether, he has a strong disincentive to meddle. He just says No and moves on. Despite the smelling-salts routine this prompts at Holyrood, it has proved remarkably effective. The SNP has no answer to it. In fact, so stumped are they by being told to sling their hook that they've resorted to pretending there will be a legally binding referendum on independence next year. There will not be.
The combination of Boris and Brexit has not delivered the majority for independence that many feared but this probably has more to do with the unanswered questions in the SNP's case for separation, as well as public anxiety about the prospect of Scotland going it alone in the middle of an energy crisis, a cost-of-living emergency and a war in Europe. But Boris's stance as Dr No may help dispel the myth that the only way to save the Union is by salami-slicing it every time the nationalist beast demands to be fed.
What of Douglas Ross? The Scottish Tory leader voted against the Prime Minister last night. He was placed in an invidious position by Johnson's behaviour, which Nicola Sturgeon was able to weaponise to her advantage. Ross’s attempts to balance his belief that the Prime Minister’s wrongdoing was a resignation matter against the new foreign policy and security dimensions of the war in Ukraine led to him being accused of flip-flopping.
He could certainly have handled matters better but he was only in this situation in the first place because the Prime Minister refused to obey the regulations he set for the rest of us. No matter, though. Politics isn't about what's fair or what's right. Boris Johnson broke the rules but Douglas Ross is much more likely to pay the price. It is inconceivable that he could lead the Scottish Tories into a general election at which Boris Johnson is still the UK Tory leader.
The principal achievement of last night's vote has been to hand Sir Keir Starmer a two-for. For one, it has allowed Boris Johnson to continue in post and Labour believes he will be easier to beat at the next election than some of the alternatives. For another, it has placed on the public record, down to the exact numbers, the extent of divisions within the Conservative party. In all, 148 Tory MPs, 41 per cent of the parliamentary party, have told the country that their Prime Minister is unfit for office. Boris may have survived but he, his government and his party have been severely weakened.
It is not a foregone conclusion that Boris will lead the Tories into the next election. There are still two and a half years to go in this parliament. Assuming he does, he will have to get his act together. Maybe he can't. Maybe he operates best in a miasma of chaos. But the voters have had their fill of chaos. The endless behind-the-scenes drama at Downing Street is not only bad for the governance of the country, it is utterly exhausting.
The best thing Boris Johnson could do for the country and for his own political fortunes is to drop the drama and focus on helping ordinary Britons with their cost of living and tackle the many challenges — sluggish economic growth, illegal immigration, the Northern Ireland protocol — that confront his government. If he wants to be Prime Minister so badly, he should knuckle down to the business, however exacting and however quotidian, of running the country.
Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on June 7, 2022. Image by UK Government via Creative Commons 2.0.
Matt I agree . Hunt was a terrible Minister for Health and I shudder to think of him as PM …..he has too many ‘business interests’ for my taste….some say he is too close to the Chinese . I like Penny Mordaunt . She might sort Sturgeon out big time .
This time I disagree with the spirit of this column.
You make it look like (in crofter Blackford style) that in Downing Street they had drunken orgies going on.
"the Prime Minister and his senior officials were necking champagne and wine in the corridors of power. "
Also, you make it sound like it was only politicians who were being debauched, while it was primarily civil servants.
Indeed, he got caught in his own net, but we should reflect that perhaps the rules and the way they were applied are the problem, not the bacchanalia that went on. The rules were not thought through and a sense of vindictiveness and vigilante-style state was fostered; wasn't it Patel who said that neighbours should spy (and denounce) each other? And what about the "granny killers"?
Boris is as good as gone, of that I have no doubt. Ross probably should follow suit too, to concentrate on his collection of beach foot-wear. Who would come next? Who knows... Someone with a modicum of sense of direction would be good.