This is surely the end for Boris Johnson. No prime minister can survive the resignation of his chancellor and health secretary on points of principle. Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid gave different reasons for quitting the Cabinet within half an hour of each other tonight, but both have concluded that they can no longer support the leadership of a man who has shown he has no integrity.
It is ironic, but strangely fitting, that the “greased piglet”—as David Cameron once described Johnson—should finally be pinned down by the handling of misconduct claims against Chris Pincher, the former deputy chief whip, and not the multiple breaches of the ministerial code, constitutional outrages or rule-breaking during the pandemic that will do much more harm in the end.
The truth matters, but Johnson has never believed that it does. He lied as a journalist, when he made up quotes on the Times; he lied as an opposition frontbencher, when he denied an affair to the party leader; and he has lied as prime minister, over the parties in Downing Street, over the wallpaper for No 10 and when he initially claimed he knew of no specific complaint against the man he himself reportedly described as “Pincher by name, pincher by Nature.” It is surely no coincidence that the double Cabinet resignations came on the same day as the letter from Lord McDonald, the former head of the Foreign Office, testified to the deceit. The truth will set you free, and the prime minister will soon be liberated from No 10.
The resignation letters from Sunak and Javid were leadership pitches of their own, as much as demolition jobs on Johnson. Running through both is the importance of decency and morality in politics—something the prime minister has never grasped, which is why he has lost not one but two ethics advisers.
Sunak said: “The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously… I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.” The outgoing chancellor made clear his differences with the prime minister over the economy. “Our country is facing immense challenges. We both want a low-tax, high-growth economy, and world-class public services, but this can only be responsibly delivered if we are prepared to work hard, make sacrifices and take difficult decisions,” a message that will appeal to Tory Party members who will choose the next leader. But he even couched his fiscal critique in terms of honesty. “I firmly believe the public are ready to hear that truth,” he said. “They need to know that whilst there is a path to a better future, it is not an easy one.” When Sunak told the prime minister that “it has become clear to me that our approaches are fundamentally too different,” he was referring to more than tax rates.
Javid wrote that he could no longer “in good conscience” continue serving in Johnson’s Cabinet—implicitly contrasting his own moral compass with the prime minister’s lack of one. “The British people… rightly expect integrity from their government,” he told the prime minister. “The tone you set as a leader, and the values you represent, reflect on your colleagues, your party and ultimately the country,” he wrote. “Conservatives at their best are seen as hard-headed decisionmakers, guided by strong values. We may not always have been popular, but we have been competent in acting in the national interest. Sadly, in the current circumstances, the public are concluding that we are now neither.”
Who will be next? Others around the Cabinet table must now know that the longer they stay the more they will be tainted by association. It is too soon to say that we are seeing the collapse of the entire government, as Keir Starmer suggested. There are enough “nodding dogs” in the Cabinet who know they will never get a job with anyone else to keep an administration hobbling along, but this is a tipping point.
The Tory Party rules may say that there cannot be another leadership challenge within a year, but that will not protect the prime minister. Backbenchers are rapidly concluding that their political survival depends on changing leader. The two byelection defeats show that the man who was once a “winner” in both the red wall constituencies and the blue Tory shire seats is now a loser across the country, from north to south. The public mood is only hardening against the prime minister and the Conservative Party with every new sleaze allegation that emerges. One former minister, who only a few days ago was comparing his leader to “the black knight in Monty Python after his fight with King Arthur,” now texts to say it is “over.”
Johnson swept to power by tearing up the political rulebook, and he will be swept from power by the fundamental rule of politics that prime ministers have to tell the truth.
