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

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Everyone’s focused on the Tory leadership election, but I think we’ve overlooked the real race ahead of us: which user will come up with a sufficiently pithy replacement thread title when the PM finally hands in his P45.

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Starmer should strike while the Iron is hot and call a no-confidence vote in whoever the new PM is unless they agree to call for early elections (which presumably Labour would win).

I think it will come earlier than that, if it happens at all. Labour’s line at the moment is basically: “either you remove Johnson, or we will.”

It’s not an entirely credible threat, because Johnson’s majority makes removing him impossible without either 30 Tories voting the government down, or almost 80 abstaining. But it’s more about forcing Tory MPs to put their support for Johnson’s caretaker premiership on the record, forcing them to spend the next 2 years explaining to our political journalists why they ‘resigned on principle’ on Wednesday, and then within the week voted for the same man to stay in office for months.

Once a new PM is elected, the case for an immediate VONC weakens - given how relatively united the Conservatives will be. In that case, Labour’s approach likely shifts to questioning whether the new PM has a mandate to introduce policies that the party didn’t run on in 2019 (see Labour’s attacks on May’s grammar school policy in 2016-17), and daring the PM themselves to dissolve Parliament and legitimise their premiership with the electorate.

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I see a certain QC has embarrassed himself again on Twitter.com.

Political activism really does something to people.

You'd think he'd have learnt to double-check what he posts on twitter after the fox-murder incident.

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Wallace isn't running, so we'll have to come up with some other titles.

“In Liz We Truss?”
“Look who’s back, Sunak again”
“Et Tu, Javid?”
“He who wields the knife, never wears the crown”

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https://mobile.twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1546523365896327168

That is not a small number

I haven't seen numbers like that since, well...

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https://mobile.twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1546830565244116992

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The motion appears to read as follows:

That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government while the Rt Hon Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip remains Prime Minister.

The Government apparently tried to use the logic that this wasn't a VONC in the Government, but in both the PM and the Government, which they are not required to honour. Which is flimsy at best. Given the potential constitutional ramifications, I think it's important for Labour to check just how far the Government will go, by resubmitting a clarified VONC motion, and ensure that this does not become newly established precendent.

If this Government doesn't allow a straightforward confidence vote to be held, and there isn't an intervention from Hoyle and Tory backbenchers, I would honestly support Labour dragging the Commons to a standstill until this is addressed. Force divisions on procedural votes, filibuster wherever they can. Raise point of order after point of order. Pledge to enshrine the convention in law after the next election.

A no-confidence vote was highly unlikely to pass - but it's a key democratic check on the government's power, and attempting to deny the opposition that right is highly concerning for precedent. What's to stop a future minority government without a democratic mandate clinging on through the same mechanism?

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Potentially relevant:
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1546882347559157760

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This week just gets weirder and weirder.
https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1547173003045257217

Edit: The motion will be as follows:
That this House has confidence in Her Majesty's Government.

Clearly an attempt to sidestep Labour's plan to frame the debate around Johnson's leadership (as reflected in the wording of their confidence motion), rather than general support for a Conservative Government.

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Also notably, PMQs is anarchic - it's 4 minutes past schedule, and the Speaker can't even get the House quiet enough to have the first question asked. Both Alba Party MPs had to be forcibly removed from the Chamber by the Sergeant at Arms.

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I know that other than the Government failing a confidence vote, there’s basically no way to dislodge the caretaker government. But can we agree that having a government that accepts it has no mandate or authority for two months is a very precarious position, in a time of economic uncertainty?

From all major legislation, from the Gambling Bill to the Online Harms Bill stalling out, or stuff like this:
https://mobile.twitter.com/itvpeston/status/1547344474992513024

Wild that Government MPs decided that it was vital to force a resignation from Johnson, but not vital to replace him with someone capable of running policy during a leadership election. Just send Raab to the Palace, and let him steady the ship for a month. Instead we get six weeks of infighting, while the Treasury does nothing to prepare the coming stress on the country during the autumn and winter fuel price hikes.

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For our international viewers who are new to this sideshow, the weirdness of Liz Truss, public speaker, is a whole saga - likely amplified by the excessive speech coaching she appears to have received in recent years. Contrast her low-voice and odd intonation this week, with this speech from 2016:

Here, in one of the more persuasive speeches for the Remain camp, she’s a lot more dynamic, and more comfortable talking in her natural, higher register. It seems odd that she would hamper her own ability as a speaker - but there’s a reason she would go for professional assistance (beyond the fact that Thatcher did the same thing)…

Back in 2014, Truss gave a disastrous memorable speech to the Conservative Party Conference , when she was Secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It’s packed full of surreal moments, so I’ll just leave you with a gif, and a link to the full thing at the end.

The speech resurfaces when Truss is appointed to a new role in the cabinet (even the Daily Mail, who want Truss to be PM have been known to post clips to earn some easy page views), and the whole incident remains a drag on her credibility. Even now, #porkmarkets is still full of jokes at Truss’s expense. Even BBC Radio 4 comedy programmes still paint her as “the cheese woman”. I’m not saying it’s *why* she went so hard into speech training - but it’s hard to imagine it didn’t play a role.

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Please give us the tea

It has also been suggested that when Truss gets down to business, sometimes that includes energy and industrial strategy.

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The Commons has expressed confidence in HM Government by a vote of 349-238.

The interesting thing here is probably the disparity in attendance. Only 9 Tories off the map (if they’re the only ones voting Aye), but around 40 opposition MPs AWOL. Guess the whipping teams had different priorities in different parties. Understandable given the heat, and the poor health of a number of our more elderly parliamentarians - although the Tories two oldest MPs pitched up to debate, so it can’t be too bad in the Palace of Westminster.

Also, curious to see what the DUP did - did they carry on the old tradition of voting with the government, as during Confidence and Supply (which would suggest more Tory abstentions)?
Did Johnson’s approach to the NI Protocol piss them off enough that they voted against? Or did they just abstain? Only one of their MPs spoke in the debate, and it was just a plea for civility (which, I know, DUP - it’s ironic).

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The Conservative Party has withdrawn the whip from Tobias Ellwood, one of Johnson's earliest and loudest critics, after he abstained from last night's vote of confidence.

He was one of over 50 MPs who abstained - so either the Government has been looking for a scapegoat, or he had a conversation with the whips where he made it clear that his abstention was based on his views, rather than an inability to make it to the Palace of Westminster in time.

Incidentally, Wragg was in Moldova last night, and is currently meeting the president of that state - in his official capacity as Chair of the Commons Defence Committee, at the time this message was posted. I'm really not sure why that's unforgivable, but the other 11 Tories who abstained get away with it. 

It's worth noting that several other Johnson critics abstained, including Nus Ghani, and William Wragg. That pair have the excuse of being deputy chairs of the 1922 committee, on a day when they were handling a vote - although I would note that the rest of the 1922 Executive, including Graham Brady, found time to vote.

Official line from the whips this morning is this: “Other Conservative MPs cancelled foreign trips, left poorly relatives and one MP’s mother died on the morning of the vote and still attended and voted.” They've inferred that the other 11 MPs made pairing agreements with Labour.

Frankly, this still seems like some hypocrisy on Johnson's part. He's spent the last week pearl-clutching about how our approach to Ukraine could be weakened by his successor, but when one of his MPs actually goes to discuss defence matters with a country in Eastern Europe, he punishes him, and dangles his political career in the balance, all because of a personal feud.

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Incidentally - Ellwood (a vocal Mordaunt supporter) losing the whip means he's barred from voting in tonight's ballot. So we have a PM who's all in behind Truss, excluding one of her biggest rival's high-profile backers.

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The final point I'll make on the Ellwood whip suspension - the Chris Pincher story led the news for days before Johnson bowed to pressure and withdrew the whip. Ellwood was turfed out within 12 hours.

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The Mail have outdone themselves over the last couple of days:

https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1549693730705346562

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PMQs is remarkably poor quality this week. Johnson repeating the same talking points with even more frequency than normal, and just seems bitter. Starmer and Blackford are making a valiant effort, but don't seem to be landing any particularly good blows.

Maybe it's the heat, but the whole thing looks more like a passive-aggressive family disagreement. Typically there's at least some cross-partisan goodwill on the final PMQs of a PM, but there's none of that today. Some of his own backbenchers giving support, but none elsewhere. Quite a contrast with, for instance, the tributes payed to Blair by all party leaders all the way down to Ian Paisley, in his final PMQs in 2007:

Even Theresa May's final outing - deep as it was in the political quagmire of 2019, was a far friendlier, and good humoured affair - with some softer words from Corbyn (in between some harsh domestic policy criticism), praise from high-profile Labour backbenchers like Harriet Harman and Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson, and a non-partisan standing ovation as she left the chamber as Prime Minister for the last time.

Johnson got a standing ovation - but from exclusively one side of the chamber. May - as you might expect, got to her feet, but folded her arms and didn't clap.

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General Election polling is all over the map at the moment. If you go by the most recent release for each of the major pollsters, you get the following:

• YouGov: 1%
• Opinium: 3%
• Redfield: 4%
• Techne: 7%
• Deltapoll: 11%
• ComRes: 13%
• Ipsos MORI: 14%

Not sure if this is a product of wonky poll methodology, or just general uncertainty amid the current interregnum we seem to be in, with the ‘caretaker’ cabinet.

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Mixed set of polling from Ipsos-Mori today, with warnings for both major parties. 

Johnson's final PM satisfaction rating is 24%, a net rating of -45%, a worst net leaving rate than any PM than Thatcher (-46%).

Starmer isn't doing all that great at the minute though either - stuck on a -20% net approval rate, at 29% approval, and 49% dissatisfied. That's worse than the average LOTO (with a net -12% approval rating), and far weaker than the approvals of Blair and Cameron going into their election year, when both achieved net-positive ratings.

A clear majority stands in opposition to the current government being re-elected, but support for the Opposition to form the next government is still lukewarm.

Support for Labour to form the next government is higher than any time since 2010, but still lags far behind the support Cameron and Blair achieved in the run-up to their elections.

Obviously this is all academic at the moment. Fuel prices and the economic situation could put the government in a far worse position, or Truss could (less plausibly, but never say die) effectively claim Johnson's populist mantle, and claw back enough support for the government. Most PMs get a honeymoon - the question is whether Truss can pull polling back to parity, and whether this survives the forecasted economic turbulence.

Full write-up here: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/majority-do-not-think-conservative-government-deserves-be-re-elected-public-remain-unsure-about

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Not terrible for Starmer.

37% 'ready' isn't bad compared to his predecessors particularly as the 'not ready' is low. Corbyn's score was the same for both elections despite one being significantly worse than the other.

Aye - the electoral ceiling for Starmer seems to be a lot higher than it was for Miliband or Corbyn, with more floating voters. I guess it's the question of winning a decent slice of that dithering 20-30% of the electorate that troubles me.

Labour soared to 1997 levels in polling during the two peaks of partygate frenzy (January and June/July 2022), and if the winter gets ugly on the energy supply/costing front, I'd imagine they could establish a healthy lead - not that those circumstances are anything to celebrate. But I think I'd just like to see Labour perform better in between Tory crises (where they've averaged only a 5% lead since pulling ahead in December 2021), rather than simply during them, before I get more confident about predicting anything better for them than a hung parliament in 2024.

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What would be the minimum result Starmer needs in 2024 to stay as leader considering Labour’s starting from such a low base? Is it form a government or he’s out?

If the Tories lose their majority, and lack enough DUP votes to form a stable majority, Starmer is likely safe, regardless of the size of the Labour recovery:

• Inter-party negotiations on government formation, where Starmer's moderate tendencies make collaboration with the Lib Dems more plausible, and his electoral performance allows him to claim something of a mandate (will be fun to see the two Labour factions switch arguments from 2017 on this topic).
• A probable second election, arising from the incumbent government collapsing around a Queen's Speech or controversial legislation, particularly if the Conservatives try to limp on as a minority government.

Basically, if the Conservatives get under 305 seats, Starmer is ok - if they get any more than 320, he's likely screwed. A Tory majority of any size, even one challenged by a 250-260 Labour opposition (powered by a miraculous Scottish and Northern recovery), would be probably be sufficient for him to lose his job. MPs will praise his role in the party's recovery, but the memory of Kinnock and Corbyn's second attempts at an election (and the ambition of rival MPs) will probably be too strong to allow him to go on.

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Follow-up to point 1, but is there any world where a Con-Lib coalition (or any scenario where the Lib Dems prop up the Tories) happens? My intuition says no way because I’d imagine the scars from the coalition are still there.

I don't think so in this election cycle. Alistair Carmichael (a Lib Dem frontbencher) briefly floated the idea that the Lib Dems could work with the Tories earlier this year, but this was refuted by party leadership pretty quickly.

In 1992, a 13 year old Tory Government was predicted to lose it's majority. The Lib Dems came out and said that they were open to forming a confidence and supply agreement, but inferred that the government losing its majority would be tantamount to a loss of confidence, and that Labour were their more natural allies anyways. Right now, they're staying fairly tight-lipped, but the same consensus seems to be in place.

This is backed up by recent by-elections, where both parties have effectively conceded seats to one another, in order to spite the Tories. It's unclear whether the LDs would be up for entering a cast-iron coalition again, but if not, they could still wring some policy wins out of a Labour minority government (electoral reform, and a step towards proportional representation likely being their major goal).

Ironically though, they may not have too much power over a Labour minority. The SNP were raked over the coals in the 80s for voting no-confidence in the Callaghan government, opening the door to Thatcher at Labour's most vulnerable moment, which was one of the factors that led to severely weakened SNP support in the next series of election cycles. If the Tories bring a vote of no confidence in a minority Labour government, while they climb in the polls, all other centre-left parties could find themselves forced into a corner, politically. Vote for a government with fading public approval? Or vote for an election where you could be blamed for letting the Tories return to power?

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We've had 9 Home Secretaries in the past 20 years - with Theresa May occupying a third of that time. No one else but Patel and Blunkett even made it to 3 years in the role. My father used to joke that the "Home Secretary regenerated more often than Dr Who", and he wasn't far off.

If she really does get tapped for the role (my gut still says Therese Coffey is a safer bet, but I've got a pretty mixed record on predictions, so hey), I think there's a good chance she'll have been reassigned by election day.

I'm hardly breaking new ground by saying I think Braverman would be pretty bad in the role - on both policy and administrative grounds. Her views on human rights and the ECHR makes me concerned about giving her a central role in the cabinet, let alone at the Home Office, where she'd hold significant power over policing, immigration, and aspects of the justice system. But as others have raised, she's not exactly an effective Commons performer or public communicator either.