End Game for Johnson?

Last roll of the Dice

The staying power of our prime minister, Boris Johnson, is one of the great mysteries of our time. He was crucified by the public and press and almost eviscerated by losing 148 of his own MPs in a vote of confidence but had the impudence and outright bloody-mindedness to continue. Our absence of a constitution means that there is no way of ridding ourselves of this uncaring, self-centred expropriator of people and places. He has fractured the nations of the United Kingdom and demeaned the UK's credibility in the eyes of other global leaders.

Tarnished Britain is at breaking point and he continues to improvise with ideas that fail the test of practicality and lack the authority of wiser counsel. It is not that Boris Johnson's moral compass was never calibrated to the magnetic north, it is set permanently on his self-interest. His cabinet was constructed in his own image so we have the double jeopardy of being governed by junk politicians who speak duplicity to power. 

Replacing him is part of the problem, there is no sense that there are any obvious candidates in the cabinet who would command the respect of the Conservative MPs let alone the country. The factions in the party outwith the cabinet are not at one with each other. The Brexiteers, One Nation Tories, the executive of the 1922 committee, the northern research group, tax-cutters and the net zero group would have to find common ground. There is little evidence that they can discover this, let alone agree on a manifesto for action when the country is being ripped apart by so many centrifugal forces.

The latest example of the Prime Minister's morally corrupt mind was served last week when he attempted to send a near-empty plane of asylum seekers to Rwanda. Their asylum claims could be dealt with in Rwanda by what Priti Patel claims is "a modern democratic country." This view is not shared by Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, the European Parliament or Prince Charles. The earlier Israeli attempt to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was voluntary but collapsed after a year when most of the asylum seekers left and found their way back into Europe. 

Later this week the PM is due to attend a G7 meeting in Germany and then a NATO meeting in Spain. It is the way for all scoundrels, to disappear when the going gets tough and be seen with world leaders or better still President Zelensky. What a Bamboozler! It feels like we are nearing that eureka moment, his days of leadership are surely numbered. We must just wait for the next indiscretion when even the cowardly Tory MPs will decide that enough is enough. They will finally find the courage to junk him on the altar of his disastrous poll ratings and run a lottery to decide on which of the deranged members of the cabinet is next to scuttle the sinking ship. The jeopardy of junk politicians will not end with the demise of Johnson, he has assembled a legacy that is full of them.