A sigh of relief in Westminster: Boris Johnson resigns. Wednesday evening, the prime minister was still resolved to fight on and sacked Michael Gove. But Gove was not alone to tell the occupant of Number 10 that his time was up. Priti Patel and Grant Shapps did so too. Late in the evening, the count of resignations from the government stood at 42.
On Thursday morning, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis resigned from the cabinet. Science minister George Freeman, security minister Damian Hinds, pensions minister Guy Opperman and treasury minister Helen Whately where among those who followed. From the evening of July 5 until the moring of July 7, an unprecedented 57 MPs had resigned from Boris Johnson’s government. Just from the practical point of view, even a positive-thinking prime minister had to realize that it was almost impossible to find competent people to replace all those who had resigned.
Finally, a Number 10 source told The Telegraph that the PM had agreed to stand down after a talk with Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 C0mmittee, a committee of Tory backbenchers who can call a confidence vote.
Boris Johnson survived a no confidence vote in June and, normally another such vote is not possible within a year. But of course, this is just an inner-Tory rule — and rules can be changed. Even the egotistic Boris Johnson whose only program is “Boris Johnson” was forced to realize that the game was over.
My favorite comment this morning regarding the end of Boris Johnson came from Adam Boulton on Sky News: “This has turned into Murder On The Orient Express” — the famous Agatha Christie novel in which all train passengers conspire to kill a man.
Suggested reading: Tom Bower: Boris Johnson: The Gambler. Virgin Digital, October 2020, 578 pages. Order the book from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de.
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Boris Johnson (official photo as Foreign Secretary). Photo credit: www.gov.uk
Article added on July 7, 2022 at 11:57 Swiss time.
