Dem
51
GOP
49
Getting elected to office as a populist with demagogic tendencies? Doable. Keeping that going, long-term? Much harder. Former British PM Boris Johnson, one of the fellows who was often compared to Donald Trump (along with Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi) suffered what appears to be his final fall from grace last week. Since we are not intimately familiar with the British political system, we reached out to our U.K. correspondents for a report. A.B. in Litchfield was kind enough to send this in:
Boris Johnson is a Classicist, or at least claims to be, so will no doubt be aware that Nemesis inevitably exacts her revenge on hubris; on June 19, 2023, Nemesis caught up with the former Prime Minister.
The bare facts are as follows. In April 2022, the House of Commons Privileges Committee, the cross-party body responsible for deciding whether MPs have breached the rules of the Commons during Parliamentary debate, was asked to review the "conduct of Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson MP" in regard to "four specific assertions made by Mr. Johnson at Prime Minister's Questions" regarding "the legality of activities in 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office under COVID regulations". In plain English, the Privileges Committee was asked to determine whether or not Boris Johnson lied during Prime Minister's Questions when he asserted that no COVID rules had been broken at his official residence—when subsequent media reports alleged that multiple rule-breaking parties had taken place at Number 10.
It's important to stress that the committee was not reviewing whether or not the parties had broken the rules (which was the subject of a separate inquiry), but rather whether Johnson had knowingly lied about the parties on the floor of the House. Quaint though this may appear to our American cousins, knowingly misleading the House during debate—what the rest of us call "lying"—is considered a serious breach of Parliament's rules, and one that can bring significant sanctions. Critically in the present case, if an MP is suspended for at least 10 days as a result of the rules breach, then their constituents can try to arrange a recall by-election. The committee is chaired by the much-respected senior Labour MP Harriet Harman, who holds the purely honorary and informal title of "Mother of the House" as the longest-serving female MP in the Commons. However, the committee as a whole has a Conservative Party majority, with 4 Conservatives, 2 Labour, and 1 Scottish Nationalist.
On June 15, the committee released its report, and across 108 pages and more than 30,000 words laid waste to what remained of Johnson's reputation. The full report is available online, but the findings can be easily summarized: Boris Johnson didn't just lie to the House, he lied repeatedly, intentionally, and recklessly, and "we conclude that in deliberately misleading the House Mr. Johnson committed a serious contempt."
Johnson didn't take any of this lying down. After being shown a pre-release copy of the report, he went on the offensive, attempting to preempt the committee before the findings could be made public. In language that has been characterized on this side of the Atlantic as "Trumpian," he accused the committee of being a "kangaroo court" and engaging in a "witch hunt." Knowing that the report recommended a 10-day suspension (enabling a recall election that he might well have lost), Johnson resigned from Parliament with immediate effect. This forces the government to fight a by-election for his former seat that the Conservatives will almost certainly lose. However, this maneuver backfired when the committee decided that Johnson's intemperate language consisted of further contempt of the parliamentary process, and extended the final recommended sanction to a 90-day suspension. While not quite the record (Labour MP Keith Vaz was suspended for 6 months for paying for male prostitutes, procuring cocaine for said prostitutes, and then lying about it), it marked the first time that a British MP faced suspension for actions taken while serving as prime minister.
Johnson is no longer an MP, so the 90-day suspension is now largely symbolic, but Parliament moved forward with debating the committee report on June 19. A large number of Conservative Party MPs, likely concerned about possible grassroots backlash, suddenly discovered that their calendar had a pressing event that regrettably kept them away from Westminster on the day; this included Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Johnson also asked his remaining supporters not to actively vote against the report, apparently out of concern that this would only show how few supporters he had left. The final vote was nonetheless damning. Parliament accepted the report by a vote of 354 to 7, and 118 Conservative MPs actively voted to accept, including former Prime Minister Theresa May and current Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt. While 225 MPs failed to vote, this offers a sharp contrast to Donald Trump's hold on the Republican Party.
The former PM still has his supporters, many of whom were awarded life membership of the House of Lords or knighthoods in his "resignation honours list," something which all outgoing prime ministers are entitled to, but which Johnson seems to have disproportionately used to reward his immediate cronies. But this dwindling cult-like minority seems insufficiently powerful to enable any sort of return for the discredited Johnson, even if he still clearly harbors ambitions of a political resurrection. Though he still has a lucrative future as a newspaper columnist and after-dinner speaker, the general consensus now is that Johnson's career in Parliament is over, and no doubt many government ministers are thinking of the famous quote from post-war Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee towards a tiresome party chairman: "I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome."
As Guardian columnist Marina Hyde put it, "Johnson didn't just lie—he lied about the lies he had told, and he lied about the lies that he had not yet told, but had every intention of telling." Ultimately, the institutions of our unwritten constitution, which depend on participants both accepting and obeying the rules, just about held; but it will take years for them to recover from the damage inflicted on them by the Johnsonian stain on the British body politic.
G.S. in Basingstoke, after reading the above, had this to add:
A couple of observations on yesterday's events and my own interpretation. The debate on Johnson's punishment took place on Monday in a near-deserted House of Commons; Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was unfortunately engaged in a charity fundraiser and manifestly too busy to enforce the honesty, integrity and accountability he promised upon assuming office. "Cometh the hour, dissapeareth the man," as one Guardian commentator pithily observed. Perhaps my favorite moment was when Jacob Rees-Mogg—known as "Minister for the 18th century" for his anachronistic style and views (oh, and newly knighted in Boris' resignation honours)—chose to take Harriet Harman, the longest serving female MP, to task for not resigning chairmanship of the committee, over her publicly stated views prior to the committee being constituted, therefore giving the "perception of bias." Harman got straight to her feet, bluntly informed Rees-Mogg that she was keenly aware of the problems of perception, had offered to step down and been told by Rees-Mogg's own conservative government that it was perfectly acceptable for her to stay in place. Whether it was this public chastisement or otherwise, Rees-Mogg was one of the 225(!) MPs that chose to abstain, resulting in the bill's easy passage. A mere 7 MPs chose to support Johnson.
The size of the vote and the political straightjacket it put Tory MPs in were obvious: Vote for the motion and outrage Boris supporters; vote against and outrage the public in general. The dilemma was not dissimilar, in my view, to the one found by many aspirant U.S. Republican politicians deciding on political positions helpful for primaries or the general election. Sunak's unwillingness to take a position (cowardice?) will doubtless be used as a cudgel by the opposition between now and the next election. Overall, I take a somewhat rosier view than A.B. on the implications of this saga: As may happen when the walls close around Trump, Boris ultimately found that he simply could not escape his own actions and hubris, even with a Conservative majority on the committee and in Parliament. As Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) observed in relation to Rep. "George Santos" (R-NY) and his looseness with the truth, "the wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."
And S.T. in Worcestershire added this:
I will mention two minor points. The first is that the resignation honours list astonishingly includes a further honor for civil servant Martin Reynolds, aka "Party Marty," the author of the infamous e-mail in May 2020 inviting Downing Street staff to "bring your own booze" to an event in Downing Street at the height of lockdown! Perhaps this gives an insight into how little remorse Boris Johnson actually feels. The second is there are now 4 by-elections pending in Conservative held seats, Johnson's, those of two members of the Boris fan club, and a fourth, where a Conservative MP who has been under investigation for improper conduct for months, has thrown in the towel. So Rishi Sunak may be facing an uncomfortable summer.
Thanks to all three of you! We are always interested in major developments in the political system of the United States' most important ally, not to mention parallels to Donald Trump (or to Joe Biden, not that he's relevant here). (Z)