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

[TheTide]

Suella Braverman launching a doomed leadership candidacy - before the PM has resigned, and while trying to stay in cabinet. In an insane day, that’s got to be in the top ten barmy moments.

A cabinet minister declaring a leadership bid and calling for the Prime Minister to resign is fine as long as sacking her isn't enough of a dramatic headline, or something something something.

[DINGO Joe]

Suella Braverman, Attorney General, calling for him to go. Saw a snippet of Stanley Johnson (Boris's father) on GB News and putting on a bit of bravado but I get the sense that he doesn't give much of a damn.

Apparently, Suella also announced her intention to run for PM too. 

[Torrain]

Cabinet as of 8am tomorrow:

[TheTide]

Suella Braverman, Attorney General, calling for him to go. Saw a snippet of Stanley Johnson (Boris's father) on GB News and putting on a bit of bravado but I get the sense that he doesn't give much of a damn.

Apparently, Suella also announced her intention to run for PM too.  

Both of these things on a prominent evening television programme! Really nothing wrong with this situation is there.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I don't even get what the Boris plan is now. It's inevitable you're going to lose the VONC as soon as it's able to happen. So what is even the point of fighting? The only possible way to avert it is to go to the Palace ASAP.

Maybe he thinks he can actually get a dissolution *after* losing a VONC??

Utter and absolute madness obviously, but seriously who the f*** knows at this point

(Johnson loyalists have also been heard muttering about the "Corbyn precedent" - yes really)

A rather mad strategy that actually has precedent! Good old Joh Bjelke-Petersen tried a rather similar gambit in ‘89 as I recall. (And in fact the State Governor may have established a nice precedent if the Queen needs to employ her reserve powers)

[Torrain]

It’s midnight here - and the resignations are still coming.
https://mobile.twitter.com/GarethDavies_MP/status/1544817086744109057?s=20&t...

[DINGO Joe]

Suella Braverman, Attorney General, calling for him to go. Saw a snippet of Stanley Johnson (Boris's father) on GB News and putting on a bit of bravado but I get the sense that he doesn't give much of a damn.

Apparently, Suella also announced her intention to run for PM too.  

Both of these things on a prominent evening television programme! Really nothing wrong with this situation is there.

Well, not if your doing a clown ranking as someone was a couple of pages back. 
Helps you standout amid the din.

[Pres Mike]

Boris Johnson needs to stand his ground.

The conservative party overwhelming wanted him to be their leader. Not MPs but the actually voters.

The UK wanted him to be PM in 2019 and gave him a strong majority.

There are segments of the conservative party that never liked him and never truly accepted him as leader despite the nationwide party wanting him.

All these resignations are traitors. Rishi Sunak Sajid Javid are jumping ship because they want to be PM, not morals.

[Torrain]

Boris Johnson needs to stand his ground.

The conservative party overwhelming wanted him to be their leader. Not MPs but the actually voters.

The UK wanted him to be PM in 2019 and gave him a strong majority.

There are segments of the conservative party that never liked him and never truly accepted him as leader despite the nationwide party wanting him.

All these resignations are traitors. Rishi Sunak Sajid Javid are jumping ship because they want to be PM, not morals.

Mate.

• 46 MPs resigned from his government today.
• Party whips believe they can count on the support of less than 70 of their 358 MPs in a confidence vote in the PM.
• Numerous sources suggest that Johnson cannot find MPs to replace the nearly 50 vacancies in government
• Both the Tory press, and now members of the cabinet are openly speculating about his successor

The party is over. The Johnson premiership should now be measured in hours, not days or weeks.

[Pres Mike]

Boris Johnson needs to stand his ground.

The conservative party overwhelming wanted him to be their leader. Not MPs but the actually voters.

The UK wanted him to be PM in 2019 and gave him a strong majority.

There are segments of the conservative party that never liked him and never truly accepted him as leader despite the nationwide party wanting him.

All these resignations are traitors. Rishi Sunak Sajid Javid are jumping ship because they want to be PM, not morals.

Mate.

• 46 MPs resigned from his government today.
• Party whips believe they can count on the support of less than 70 of their 358 MPs in a confidence vote in the PM.
• Numerous sources suggest that Johnson cannot find MPs to replace the nearly 50 vacancies in government
• Both the Tory press, and now members of the cabinet are openly speculating about his successor

The party is over. The Johnson premiership should now be measured in hours, not days or weeks.

A lot of these people were waiting for Johnson to fall. They never saw him as one of their own.

Although, BJ could survive. You can't have a confidence vote for another year.

[soundchaser]

Although, BJ could survive. You can't have a confidence vote for another year.

Until the rules are changed on Monday to allow for one, which Johnson will lose handily.

[Torrain]

I know it’s gratuitous. But BBC Newsnight just listing the resignations of the past 24 hours, like the closing credits to the Johnson error era just puts into perspective how utterly bats**t this day has been.

https://mobile.twitter.com/TomHourigan/status/1544810671191228416

[Oryxslayer]

Assuming that the rules are changed and that Johnson does lose a VONC next week (although, at this point, I'm not 100% confident that the party won't bottle it yet again), the rule that leaders can't be challenged again for one calendar year after winning a one needs to be scrapped ASAP. Sure, a threshold of letters for a challenge is probably a necessity, but the one year rule has created a truly ludicrous situation.

At this point I'd also have to say that the careers of anyone who remains in cabinet after this point must be toast. The Johnson loyalists apart, you can't announce that you have no confidence in the PM, tell that to his face, then back down and announce that you support him just because he ing says 'no - piss off'. This is possibly the only parliamentary democracy in the world where the politicians could be that weak and spineless in dealing with a failed leader. You can't imagine them sh*tting the bed this badly in an Australian political party.

Johnson is trying to make this argument that the Conservative victory in 2019 resulted in a governing mandate not for the party but for him as an individual, which really is totally contrary to the central premise of parliamentary democracy, and it's extraordinary how many are somehow willing to go along with that reasoning.

Reasoning that has been massively been encouraged by our media, of course - not least when even a BBC Political Editor banded around the nonsense phrase "unelected prime minister" with abandon.

I mean it should be no surprise that since many Tories guiding light ideologically these days is the US, they would put up a PM who believes he has the mandate and stature of a president.  In this vein, Boris's main personal failure was his inability (impossibility) to get loyalists kick out older incumbents more loyal to the party as a whole  - aka what happened to the GOP with their 2018 and 2020 intakes. Maybe in that universe the entire party would have their heads in the sand,  not just him.

It’s midnight here - and the resignations are still coming.
https://mobile.twitter.com/GarethDavies_MP/status/1544817086744109057?s=20&t...

To this end, I think we have reached the point where if you are still on the ship come Monday,  you are a loyalist whose higher career ends that day as well.

So 1922 committee decided not to change the rules tonight why? They're just gonna have to do it next week when he doesn't resign

They’re holding elections for a new executive on Monday - the argument being this new body will have a Democratic mandate to change the rules, whereas the current rump one didn’t.

I guess thats a better explanation, I thought they were still holding out hope he'd go voluntarily. It seems like prolonging the suffering either way to me though.

Far from me to suggest rule changes to a internally antidemocratic and exclusive club like the Conservatives, but the ideal way to go about this seems to be a incrementalized trigger threshold.  Essentially,  have X% of letters be the initial trigger,  and if the PM survives that vote, have subsequent votes that year require X × 2, 3, etc. Put up or shut up: prove things have changed and you can win a revote. I have full faith Boris would quickly face a second and third, if needed,  VONC to kick him out if this were the rules presently.

[Torrain]

A lot of these people were waiting for Johnson to fall. They never saw him as one of their own.

Although, BJ could survive. You can't have a confidence vote for another year.

A rule-change appears imminent (at latest following next week’s election to the 1922 Committee Executive, possibly earlier), and a government this crippled cannot survive. Two examples of this:

• Tomorrow morning, the Attorney General is to answer questions in the Commons. The PM has to either sack Suella Braverman, or let a woman who has openly lost confidence in him (and publicly declared an intent to take his job!) give answers on behalf of his government.
• Only 2 out of the 6 ministerial roles in the Department of Education are currently filled. Amidst exam marking season, the recent threat of industrial action, and anger over the state of the government’s stalled reform bill, that’s just not sustainable.

Even if this was a coordinated plot to replace Johnson that he’s trying to tell us it is, he has no power, or technically the right, to stop it if he’s lost the support of the party. We’re a parliamentary system, not a presidential one with a direct electoral mandate for the head of government.

Johnson’s mandate is indirect, and comes from the support of his MPs, who each individually draw their mandate from their constituency electorate. Once your MPs withdraw their support (typically on the basis of political pressure from those same constituents), it doesn’t matter how many voters wanted to “get Brexit down”, it’s over.

[Pilchard]

Worth noting that the PM does not have the unrestricted power to dissolve Parliament when he/she wishes: a request must be made to the Sovereign, who can refuse. The rules governing this at present are the so-called Lascelles Principles, submitted by terrifying Mid Century Arch-Flunkey Sir Alan Lascelles (a.k.a. 'Tommy', a.k.a. 'Senex') in an anonymous letter to The Times in 1950. Quite a few of the scenarios being floated around at present happen to violate both active parts of the Lascelles Principles, which would presumably mean a refusal.

It's both hilarious and terrifying that an anonymous letter to the Editor of the Times forms such a fundamental part of the Constitution of the United Kingdom

How did repealing the Fixed-Term Parliament Act work exactly? I'm far from an expert on British constitutional law, but my understanding was that the royal prerogative to dissolve the legislature was a matter of common law, which once codified by the Coalition was forever annulled because the legislature cannot create common law.

The law that repealed it explicitly said that 1. it was restoring the situation as if the FTPA had never been passed and 2. this was non-justiciable. It might not technically have been "constitutional" because of the understanding of common law you mention, but this is the UK we're talking about.

The non-justiciability part of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 (section 3(c) in particular relating to limits and extent of the power) sets up an interesting contrast with the Supreme Court in Miller v PM which had endorsed the position (paragraphs 35-36 of that judgement) that the existence and extent of a prerogative power were undoubtedly justiciable (while also accepting that dissolution was one of those prerogative powers where the exercise within its legal limits was not justiciable)

[Pres Mike]

A lot of these people were waiting for Johnson to fall. They never saw him as one of their own.

Although, BJ could survive. You can't have a confidence vote for another year.

A rule-change appears imminent (at latest following next week’s election to the 1922 Committee Executive, possibly earlier), and a government this crippled cannot survive. Two examples of this:

• Tomorrow morning, the Attorney General is to answer questions in the Commons. The PM has to either sack Suella Braverman, or let a woman who has openly lost confidence in him (and publicly declared an intent to take his job!) give answers on behalf of his government.
• Only 2 out of the 6 ministerial roles in the Department of Education are currently filled. Amidst exam marking season, the recent threat of industrial action, and anger over the state of the government’s stalled reform bill, that’s just not sustainable.

Even if this was a coordinated plot to replace Johnson that he’s trying to tell us it is, he has no power, or technically the right, to stop it if he’s lost the support of the party. We’re a parliamentary system, not a presidential one with a direct electoral mandate for the head of government.

Johnson’s mandate is indirect, and comes from the support of his MPs, who each individually draw their mandate from their constituency electorate. Once your MPs withdraw their support (typically on the basis of political pressure from those same constituents), it doesn’t matter how many voters wanted to “get Brexit down”, it’s over.

But wasn’t Johnson elected leader directly from the electorate?

And I would argue his 2019 general election was a mandate. Ever single conservative voter knew a vote for their local conservative MP was a vote to have Boris Johnson as PM. Elections are nationalized. The idea that you can be a successful PM without an electorate mandate and rely solely on elected officials in your party is silly.

[soundchaser]

But wasn’t Johnson elected leader directly from the electorate?

No? Not unless I misunderstand what you mean. He was elected by Tory MPs.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

A lot of these people were waiting for Johnson to fall. They never saw him as one of their own.

Although, BJ could survive. You can't have a confidence vote for another year.

A rule-change appears imminent (at latest following next week’s election to the 1922 Committee Executive, possibly earlier), and a government this crippled cannot survive. Two examples of this:

• Tomorrow morning, the Attorney General is to answer questions in the Commons. The PM has to either sack Suella Braverman, or let a woman who has openly lost confidence in him (and publicly declared an intent to take his job!) give answers on behalf of his government.
• Only 2 out of the 6 ministerial roles in the Department of Education are currently filled. Amidst exam marking season, the recent threat of industrial action, and anger over the state of the government’s stalled reform bill, that’s just not sustainable.

Even if this was a coordinated plot to replace Johnson that he’s trying to tell us it is, he has no power, or technically the right, to stop it if he’s lost the support of the party. We’re a parliamentary system, not a presidential one with a direct electoral mandate for the head of government.

Johnson’s mandate is indirect, and comes from the support of his MPs, who each individually draw their mandate from their constituency electorate. Once your MPs withdraw their support (typically on the basis of political pressure from those same constituents), it doesn’t matter how many voters wanted to “get Brexit down”, it’s over.

But wasn’t Johnson elected leader directly from the electorate?

And I would argue his 2019 general election was a mandate. Ever single conservative voter knew a vote for their local conservative MP was a vote to have Boris Johnson as PM. Elections are nationalized. The idea that you can be a successful PM without an electorate mandate and rely solely on elected officials in your party is silly.

Please learn literally anything about the history of British elections and government. Prime Ministers being forced from office by internal opposition from their own party MPs is a routine occurrence. Johnson himself literally got the leadership of the Tories because May had to resign under the threat of no-confidence votes by the party.

[Хahar 🤔]

A lot of these people were waiting for Johnson to fall. They never saw him as one of their own.

Although, BJ could survive. You can't have a confidence vote for another year.

A rule-change appears imminent (at latest following next week’s election to the 1922 Committee Executive, possibly earlier), and a government this crippled cannot survive. Two examples of this:

• Tomorrow morning, the Attorney General is to answer questions in the Commons. The PM has to either sack Suella Braverman, or let a woman who has openly lost confidence in him (and publicly declared an intent to take his job!) give answers on behalf of his government.
• Only 2 out of the 6 ministerial roles in the Department of Education are currently filled. Amidst exam marking season, the recent threat of industrial action, and anger over the state of the government’s stalled reform bill, that’s just not sustainable.

Even if this was a coordinated plot to replace Johnson that he’s trying to tell us it is, he has no power, or technically the right, to stop it if he’s lost the support of the party. We’re a parliamentary system, not a presidential one with a direct electoral mandate for the head of government.

Johnson’s mandate is indirect, and comes from the support of his MPs, who each individually draw their mandate from their constituency electorate. Once your MPs withdraw their support (typically on the basis of political pressure from those same constituents), it doesn’t matter how many voters wanted to “get Brexit down”, it’s over.

But wasn’t Johnson elected leader directly from the electorate?

And I would argue his 2019 general election was a mandate. Ever single conservative voter knew a vote for their local conservative MP was a vote to have Boris Johnson as PM. Elections are nationalized. The idea that you can be a successful PM without an electorate mandate and rely solely on elected officials in your party is silly.

Somehow it was actually better when you were telling us that only sluts care about abortion.

[Pres Mike]

But wasn’t Johnson elected leader directly from the electorate?

No? Not unless I misunderstand what you mean. He was elected by Tory MPs.

Actually he was elected by all registered Conservative party members in the UK
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Conservative_Party_leadership_election

He won 92k votes, 66% of the electorate

Conservative MP did vote in several rounds, narrowing it down to two. Than it went to the general electorate

[soundchaser]

But wasn’t Johnson elected leader directly from the electorate?

No? Not unless I misunderstand what you mean. He was elected by Tory MPs.

Actually he was elected by all registered Conservative party members in the UK
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Conservative_Party_leadership_election

He won 92k votes, 66% of the electorate

Conservative MP did vote in several rounds, narrowing it down to two. Than it went to the general electorate

This is the equivalent of a primary, though. He wasn't made PM in a general election a la the U.S. President.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm actually pretty shocked Boris is going down over what he is for. These scandals sound so minor in comparison to everything from the Trump Administration...a reminder other countries actually have some standards.

[Virginiá]

I'm actually pretty shocked Boris is going down over what he is for. These sandals sound so minor in comparison to everything from the Trump Administration...a reminder other countries actually have some standards.

I've come to believe that there is effectively no bottom for a US president, short of, say, actually shooting someone on camera on 5th avenue, so long as the president in question is sufficiently stubborn and shameless in their excuses. At least as far as Republicans go, considering Trump essentially put that theory to the test.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I'm actually pretty shocked Boris is going down over what he is for. These sandals sound so minor in comparison to everything from the Trump Administration...a reminder other countries actually have some standards.

Trudeau has done far worse than Boris as well

[Zinneke]

I'm actually pretty shocked Boris is going down over what he is for. These sandals sound so minor in comparison to everything from the Trump Administration...a reminder other countries actually have some standards.

Different standards. No US President would have survived with Boris’s sex life. You guys are also insanely puritan.