Boris Must Go

I have an admission to make. I have never been a member of the Boris Johnson fan club. Three years ago, I wrote an op-ed warning the people of the UK of the hazard they were flirting with. I likened Brexit to a three-ring circus wherein Boris was a “clown riding a unicycle that constantly interrupted the rest of the show.” In retrospect, I probably should have passed on the laughs and taken a more serious tone. That said, the lede claimed that “electing him as the UK's next prime minister would be a disaster.”

I could write at length about the abuses of the Johnson administration, but this post is urgent. The Tories are holding a confidence vote right now to determine whether Boris will remain PM. This may seem good news as it’s a chance that he will finally leave office. That may happen, but I fear this may be a staged event with the aim of cutting off calls for Johnson to resign. All he needs is enough of his own party’s votes to survive, so this may be the real deal, or it may be a bit of theater.

Johnson’s term has been littered with abuses and his cabinet is loaded with flunkies who’ve gone along. No one came forward when parties were regularly held while people in the UK weren't allowed to visit lived ones as they died from COVID-19. When news of the parties leaked, he lied to Parliament about it, which violates the ministerial code.

Johnson’s ethics advisor claims he has repeatedly “told the prime minister to publicly explain why he thought incurring a fixed-penalty notice would not be in breach of the code of conduct for ministers.” He also threatened to resign if a reasonable explanation wasn’t forthcoming, and none has been received. His anti-corruption tsar, John Penrose, just resigned over the same matter and indicated that he would vote for the PM to go. And while Johnson hasn’t answered Lord Geidt’s call, he has updated the ministerial code to make it so that rule-breakers don’t have to be sacked for lying. How convenient.

In what world does changing the rules so that you don’t have to resign for breaking them while refusing your ethics advisor’s call to explain yourself not equivalent to admitting guilt?

Whether the Tories will give him the boot remains to be seen, but the people are clear on their wishes.

There are a couple of matters worth noting as they deliver the confidence vote. The first is the announcement that the UK will send long-range missiles to Ukraine following Putin’s threat to use wider bombing if Ukraine received long-range missiles.

Johnson is also threatening to rip up the NI protocol, a vital piece of the Brexit negotiations. Doing so threatens the Good Friday deal that brought peace to Northern Ireland.

These moves are red meat for a segment of his party’s MPs that he hopes will save his job. He acted similarly before when he called the snap election in 2019. He then promised things around Brexit that he probably thought he could later abandon. Why wouldn’t he? He doesn’t seem to give a damn about anything except himself. Except he couldn’t abandon those promises because the MPs he promised were rabid for those things. Once again the cornered animal, he’s now making similar promises to the same people. Once again, he’s putting many people’s lives at risk to save his own ass.

The world needs better leadership from the UK. Should the Tories keep him in his role, the people should drive him out.

Update:

Boris received enough votes to stay in office, but 148 (out of 359) of his party’s MPs went against him. While the votes were being registered, Jacob Rees-Mogg claimed Boris only needed to win by one to keep his seat.

Later, his comments from Theresa May’s confidence vote came back to bite him as they made the rounds on Twitter.