Boris Johnson’s Road Not Taken and the Key to His Political Salvation

The Platinum Jubilee truce — the suspension of hostilities within Britain’s Conservative Party — is ended. The challenge to Prime Minister Johnson’s leadership of the party, and of the government, has been defeated. The PM has a 12-month respite from disgruntled Tories, who may not bring another no-confidence motion in that interval.Make no mistake about it, though, Bois Johnson is a wounded political animal. His political hold over fellow Tories and party faithful across the country is effectively over. Conservatives, in the words of historian John Ramsden, have “an appetite for power.” And the question that needs to be asked is: How has it come to this?It was Mr. Johnson, after all, who succeeded in getting Britain out of the European Union. That alone will ensure him a place in the history books, if only as a footnote. Many stalwarts, though, believe that the Brexit promise has been betrayed. Instead of “maximal liberty and minimal government,” Britons got much the opposite.This is on Boris Johnson. Policy on infrastructure and “net-zero carbon” climate change. Illegal immigration. The government response to Covid-19. Sensible precautions were abandoned to mandated furloughs, lockdowns, and social distancing. One consequence was burgeoning budget spending, inflation, and cost-of-living rises.The Sue Gray report into “Partygate” wots done him in — that is, he was done in by the public indignation that Covid-19 restriction rules applied only to the governed, and not the government. The prime minister was hoist on his own petard. No. 10 felt it could do no wrong. Equally complicit is Tory tergiversation, the pitfalls of power.Only the “Covid Recovery Group” had the fortitude to question the logic of the lockdown strategy on Britain’s socio-economic stability. Ideally, associations of such “little platoons” will coalesce around particular issues — personal liberty, limited government, tax-and-spending prudence — and hold the government to account.Only the leadership benefits from a centralized party organization; breaking down the rigors of party whips in favor of greater independence, that is a first step toward reform. Such “brokered politics” characterized the Tory Party in the days of Pitt the Younger and Lord Liverpool. Neither leader enjoyed an iron grip on power.No, they were compelled to build coalitions in order to govern. For Tories, the way forward requires a return to tradition. Should be natural, right? Mr. Johnson (and his successors) would find that he can no longer rule his party by authoritarian fiat alone. He would have to earn the vote of Conservative MPs.As it is, Boris Johnson’s ministry — as Britsons put it — is still vulnerable, if sufficient numbers vote with the opposition to bring down the government. Benjamin Disraeli brought down his leader, Sir Robert Peel, for having betrayed the party’s agricultural supporters.“For me there remains this at least,” Disraeli told the House of Commons, “the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.”An opportunity is also presented for smaller right-wing parties to argue they can represent conservative values at Westminster better than the Tories — for instance, Reform UK, founded by Nigel Farage, and Lawrence Fox’s Reclaim. By focusing on constituencies where the Conservative Party has failed former supporters, fringe parties can punch above their weight in Parliament.Commenting on Mr. Johnson’s confidence vote, Mr. Farage recounts his role in the Conservative shellacking in the May 2019 EU parliamentary elections. “Boris Johnson wouldn’t even be prime minister, scores of those MPs wouldn’t even have their seats, if I hadn’t set up the Brexit Party,” he deadpans. To wit: “I got rid of Mrs. May, not the Tory MPs.”The threat of losing power will help spur them to action. A Statista poll conducted in May gave the Labor Party a one-point advantage over Conservatives, 36 percent to 35 percent. A miniscule lead and within margins of error, but no less vexing. The challenge to the prime minister’s leadership will only exacerbate the erosion in Tory support. Fortunately for the government, Sir Keir Starmer and his party are hardly any more politically palatable. For the Conservative Party to regain the trust of the British people, and Boris Johnson the trust of Tories, there is an simple solution, courtesy of Adam Smith:“Little else is requisite to carry a State to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.” In short, redeem the promise of Brexit.BrexitDiarist@gmail.com

Boris Johnson’s Road Not Taken and the Key to His Political Salvation

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