British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will turn 58 on 19 June 2022. He is free to celebrate this event in whichever way he may consider suitable, unlike his birthday in 2020, which entailed the breaking of his own lockdown regulations and led to a fixed penalty notice from the Metropolitan Police and a fine of £50 on early repayment- the first time a serving British Prime Minister was deemed to have officially broken the law. He will also have been reminded that a year is indeed a long time in politics, as he contrasts his current predicament with a surge in his popularity around this time last year, when he basked in the afterglow of the success of his government’s early procurement of vaccines, followed by the proficient rollout of a mass vaccination programme against Covid-19.
In his own words, Mr. Johnson “decisively” won a confidence vote on 6 June 2022, even though the number of nay votes was the largest ever cast by Conservative MPs against their leader. On that day, 359 Conservative MPs participated in a secret ballot in Committee Room 10 in the House of Commons, between 6 and 8 pm, with 211 of them, presumably including all those on the government payroll (ministers, parliamentary private secretaries, trade envoys, and party vice-chairs), confirming their allegiance to Mr Johnson, while the other 148 (41 per cent), a motley group of various subclasses of backbenchers, sought a change to the status quo.
Things started going downhill for Boris Johnson from December 2021 onwards, when the earliest reports of a series of parties at Number 10 Downing Street, defying the government’s own lockdown regulations, began to appear in the national press. Any policy successes, as well as any well-received policy U-turns, were soon subsumed in a steady feed of revelations about the political elite’s partying scene in Downing Street.
Boris Johnson arouses strong emotions, mostly dividing people between those who love him and others who hate him, if you discount those who are mostly indifferent to political matters. In the eyes of loyalists, Mr. Johnson is a charismatic person, who not only “delivered Brexit” and shepherded us through the Covid-19 pandemic, but is now onto bigger things on the world stage, particularly in Ukraine, where he has joined a growing list of “best friends” of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by supplying weapons, imposing sanctions on Russia, and joining in a concerted Western anti-Russian diplomatic offensive, while at the same time becoming persona non grata with Vladimir Putin and banned from entering Russia until further notice.
Johnson’s populist politics and combative, no-holds-barred, style appeal to many British people who portray him as a saviour for their homeland in challenging times. For these followers, policy trumps probity. For Johnson’s supporters, Partygate is just a minor distraction, dismissed as “fluff”, that has taken up much more time than it really deserves. After all, when you are stressed dealing with weighty matters of state, there’s nothing like letting your hair down on occasion, never mind any constraining laws, especially when so many others are at it as well. More pertinently, the status quo is also favoured as no credible alternative heavyweight Conservative Party leaders have yet to be identified to replace Johnson if called upon to do so.
Those opposed to Mr. Johnson are more concerned with certain aspects of his personality and his moral fibre, or lack of it, as it is accepted by all sides that opposing political parties will always find much to disagree upon when it comes to their policies. There may have been many allegations against Boris Johnson of misrepresentation of the facts and a wilful disregard of the truth, while has also been accused of making false promises in relation to his policies and of a disdain for parliamentary procedures and laws that do not suit his personal political agenda.
The fundamental concern for the opponents of Johnson is the way in which he has responded to Partygate, starting with an initial denial of partying, followed by defensive claims of ignorance of the law, thereby “lying” to Parliament and contravening the Ministerial Code of Conduct. His qualified, yet supposedly “unreserved”, apologies have been considered insincere, and his desire to “move on” to matters that most concern most ordinary citizens have been construed as attempts to evade the expected consequences of his actions, such as resignation from his position. The most vociferous of his enemies can be found among those who were bereaved during the pandemic but forbidden to visit their dying relatives in care homes and hospitals or to pay their last respects at funerals. To rub salt into their wounds, the Partygate report by Sue Gray alluded to a prevailing culture of entitlement in Downing Street which led to a total of 126 fines-73 to 48 women and 53 to 35 men-for contravening lockdown regulations.
Mr Johnson has been temporarily reprieved, but at what cost and for how long are yet to be determined. To use a historical comparison, 6 June may mark the end of the beginning for his Prime Ministership, just as it did for the War in Europe back in 1944. In an alternative scenario, Johnson’s “hollow victory” may also lead on to greater things, as he fulfils his latest promise to reinvigorate Britain’s economy, supported by another package of new policies. Either way, he will hopefully find time to celebrate his 58th birthday in the manner befitting a Prime Minister, while addressing the cost-of-living crisis, combating inflation, redressing the fallout from Brexit, and vying for a global leadership role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Here’s for another happy Prime Ministerial Birthday!
Ashis Banerjee