Prime Minister Boris Johnson may have crossed a political Rubicon in
recent days over charges that he lied about Downing Street parties during the
pandemic. But whether he is forced out of power could depend on whether one of
his fellow Conservatives is ready to play the role of Brutus.
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As Britain’s
political establishment waits for the results of an internal investigation of
the parties, a key question is whether it will trigger a plot against Johnson,
and if so, who would make the first move against him?
There is no
shortage of candidates, from the ambitious Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi
Sunak, to the crowd-pleasing foreign secretary, Liz Truss. But the tactics and
timing of a leadership challenge are fiendishly tricky, and few forget the old
British maxim, “he who wields the knife never wears the crown”.
That may explain
the uneasy lull that has settled over Westminster since last week, when Johnson
was forced to apologize for social gatherings in Downing Street that breached
lockdown restrictions. His allies and rivals alike are waiting to see how
damaging the investigation will be, how badly the Conservative Party has
slipped in the polls and whether a political king slayer emerges.
“It is easy to
judge these things looking back, but very hard looking forward,” said Robert
Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester. The
dilemma, he said, was particularly acute for Sunak, who leads the polls of
Conservative Party members and is Johnson’s most plausible replacement.
“There is a
possibility that Sunak is riding the crest of a wave right now” and could miss
his chance, Ford said. But perhaps the bigger danger is to strike now, only to
open the way for a right-wing rival more favored by the Tory Party rank and
file.
“There is a risk
he gets outflanked by Truss or somebody else,” he said, adding that a challenge
to Johnson might be more likely after local elections in May that will test his
party’s popularity.
The fragility of
Johnson’s situation was evident in the cautious response of the senior members
of his Cabinet. While Sunak said Tuesday that he believed Johnson, he urged the
public to wait for the findings of the investigation. He also said that
Britain’s ministerial code was clear about the consequences of lying to
Parliament: the prime minister would have to resign.
Truss, whom
Johnson elevated to foreign secretary in September, was more forthcoming. She
said last week that she “100% supported him continuing to get on with the job”.
But she added: “I completely understand people’s anger and dismay about what
has happened.
Johnson’s cause
was not helped when his disaffected former adviser, Dominic Cummings, claimed Monday
that he and another official warned the prime minister that the party in May
2020 would break lockdown rules and should be canceled. That contradicted
Johnson’s claim in Parliament that he was not warned about the gathering and
viewed it “implicitly” as a work event.
On a visit to a
hospital Tuesday, Johnson again denied misleading Parliament. But in an
interview with Sky News, he deflected a question about whether Cummings was
lying, and he apologized yet again for “misjudgments” in how social gatherings
were handled by Downing Street.
“Boris Johnson
is not going to resign voluntarily,” said Jonathan Powell, who served as chief
of staff to prime minister Tony Blair.
“He’s only going
to go if he is shown the door by his own party.”
That is not as
hard as it used to be; under Conservative Party rules, lawmakers can hold a
binding vote of no confidence in Johnson if 54 of them write to formally
request one. The request letters are confidential. So far, only six
Conservatives in Parliament have publicly called on Johnson to quit.
In a
no-confidence vote, held by secret ballot, Johnson would keep his job by
winning a simple majority of Conservative lawmakers. He would then be safe from
another such challenge for a year unless the rules were changed.
But setting this
process in motion could still depend on a first mover. Some of the jockeying
will have to end when the internal investigation, led by a senior civil
servant, Sue Gray, is completed, probably within the next week. His potential
Cabinet rivals will then have to either endorse him or quit, analysts said.
Sunak and Truss
are the two rivals most frequently mentioned. As chancellor, the 41-year-old
Sunak won plaudits for assembling gargantuan fiscal rescue packages early in
the pandemic. More recently, however, he has become identified with looming tax
increases that he says are necessary to fund the health care system and close
the yawning public deficit.
Truss’
plain-spoken style and free-market ideology have made her popular with the base
of the Conservative Party, no mean feat for a politician who came out against
Brexit before the 2016 referendum.
Her profile has
risen since Johnson put her in charge of negotiating the trade status of
Northern Ireland with the European Union after the resignation of David Frost,
a key ally who had hammered out the Brexit trade deal with Brussels.
If Truss can
avoid a clash over Northern Ireland, said Peter Westmacott, a former British
ambassador to France, “she could indeed be a force to be reckoned with when the
Conservative Party starts looking for a new leader”.
Sunak could also
try behind closed doors to put together a kind of unity ticket, in which he
would line up the support of Truss and other potential candidates — like Jeremy
Hunt, a former foreign secretary — by offering them plum jobs in a new
government.
“They do not
have to wait until they have a consensus on a successor to get rid of Johnson,”
Powell said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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