UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[Pericles]

Hunt would then be another example of the same effect seen in Australia, where the most moderate MPs (or at least the 'best fits' for the educated voters leaving the base) are disproportionately taken out by the wave. That election should be even more reason for them not to fool around and hesitate about knifing the leader.

[Pericles]

Here I was thinking the big news today could be Starmer getting resigned and fined. Wow. Finally someone shows courage. It looks clear that he has lost the confidence of the parliamentary party, but the one worry is that with the one-year rule I'm not sure how exactly he can be removed immediately.

[Pericles]

Oh my gosh this is amazing! Hoping for a swift execution. If it looks like Boris will not just lose but be humiliated in a vote, I wonder if he'll even pre-empt it by resigning to save face, it's supposed to be against his character but he did something like that in 2016.

[Pericles]

Looks like Gove is being set up as the scapegoat, everyone will suspect him as being a backstabber.

[Pericles]

Finally, some good news.

[Pericles]

https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1545407663885934594

It's just not enough to be certain of even winning a referendum yet alone having public support for continued EU membership. It needs to build to a consensus position. Of course Brexit was never clearly defined and there are plenty of ways to improve access to EU markets while remaining outside the EU.

[Pericles]

Fox News has a wild take about Boris' downfall https://twitter.com/Number10cat/status/1546878911639871490

[Pericles]

Jeremy Corbyn urges West to stop arming Ukraine

F**k this guy, might even have been a good thing that Boris won.

[Pericles]

Even if Truss ends up as the UK Kim Campbell, that still means Johnson ending up as the UK Brian Mulroney.

Both also have pretty consequential policy legacies despite ending up deeply unpopular.

[Pericles]

Even if Truss ends up as the UK Kim Campbell, that still means Johnson ending up as the UK Brian Mulroney.

Both also have pretty consequential policy legacies despite ending up deeply unpopular.

Certainly the case for Mulroney (privatisation, the GST, NAFTA and environmental legislation all being major aspects of his policy legacy) but for Johnson? Other than 'getting Brexit done', it's difficult to think of any significant policy legacy that his government will leave behind.

Brexit is a pretty huge legacy though. By the way, Johnson was really hurt by the fact that Brexit was done, he didn't have a proper vision without it and he wasn't needed by his base anymore.

[Pericles]

Brexit is a pretty huge legacy though.

But it isn't his legacy, is it? The general form that Brexit has taken was shaped by May and the general chaos of the 2017-19 Parliament: Johnson's only significant modifications were with respect to Northern Ireland.

He delivered it, so it is his legacy even if in a hypothetical world it could have been May's. May's deal also left open the terms of the trade deal, which under Johnson's government were quite hard, though this is easier to change than Brexit itself.

[Pericles]

It is surely indisputable that Johnson as PM achieved far less than in his pseudo-Churchill fantasies.

And that alone has got to hurt.

Covid was the biggest disruption to daily life since WWII but people won't remember him as a hero for his handling of it but as a selfish asshole, so that's another ironic humiliation.