Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Boris’s resignation speech will trouble Tory MPs

Boris Johnson has just given a bitter resignation speech that makes clear he is not going anywhere until a new leader is in place. He has set up a betrayal narrative, pointedly thanking the British public – but not his own party – for his time in office and saying it would be ‘eccentric’ to change leader when the Conservative party is only a few points behind Labour in the polls. There was no space to thank colleagues in government when he listed the work he was proud of and the projects he had hoped to see through to their conclusion. It was centred around him, not the collective effort, or indeed the Conservative party.

Freddy Gray

Boris was never Trump

The urge to compare Boris Johnson to Donald Trump was always irresistible. It has been fun, too. Both men are colourful creatures in a political environment that elevated dullards. Both men had privileged childhoods. Both are veteran womanisers with much younger wives. Both are brilliant electoral campaigners and great communicators, albeit in very different ways. Both are also much hated.Yesterday, as Johnson’s government collapsed on top of him and he appeared to be refusing to resign, some journalists instantly went for the ‘Britain Trump’ allusions. Johnson was desperately ‘clinging on’ to power; ‘unable to face reality’ and ‘refusing to respect the basic conventions of parliamentary democracy.

Lara Prendergast

How Carrie helped blow it for Boris

Of course it is sexist to blame the woman. But, in the case of Carrie Johnson, it cannot be said that she has helped her husband’s cause all that much. Looking back on the scandals that engulfed his government, she was often heavily involved in them, even if she disliked people pointing that out. No. 10 often sounded more like the set of Love Island than the residence of the Prime Minister The gold wallpaper, the dogs being prioritised over humans for evacuation from Afghanistan, the endless drama in No. 10 over partygate. With the Abba music, the broken swings, the wine poured everywhere, No. 10 often sounded more like the set of Love Island than the residence of the Prime Minister. Keeping up with the Johnsons has been both exhausting and riveting for the country.

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson says goodbye – reluctantly

Boris Johnson has announced his resignation. Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister confirmed that he would reluctantly leave office after a majority of his MPs lost faith in his ability to lead. He said it was ‘clearly the will of the parliamentary Conservative party’ that he goes. In terms of the speech, Johnson used it to big up his achievements in office and pledge support for Ukraine. He also said it was critical that the Conservative party continues with the levelling up agenda so as to unleash all the ‘genius and talent and imagination’ in the country. Johnson did not thank any members of his (remaining) cabinet The speech was rather pointed in places.

Boris Johnson

Full text: Boris Johnson’s resignation speech

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you. It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister. And I've agreed with Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of our backbench MPs, that the process of choosing that new leader should begin now and the timetable will be announced next week. I've today appointed a Cabinet to serve, as I will, until a new leader is in place.  So I want to say to the millions of people who voted for us in 2019, many of them voting conservative for the first time. Thank you for that incredible mandate. The biggest conservative majority since 1987, the biggest share of the vote since 1979.

James Forsyth

Boris should leave No. 10 immediately

Boris Johnson should stand down with immediate effect. Yes, he has managed to fill various cabinet posts. But he will find it more difficult to fill the junior ranks of government. It would clearly be better for the smooth running of government for all the ministers who quit yesterday to return. But that won’t happen with Johnson still there, even if he has resigned as Tory leader. So, the simplest thing to do is for Dominic Raab to become interim PM and say he won’t stand in the leadership contest. He could then steer the ship of state until the start of September by which time the Tories will have elected a new leader. There is also the trust question.

Nigel Jones

Disloyalty is the true Tory secret weapon

It is a very long time since David Maxwell Fyfe, a Tory home secretary in the early 1950s, said that ‘Loyalty Is the Tory party’s secret weapon’. It may not even have been true when he uttered the quote, and as the party messily defenestrates its latest leader, it is certainly not true today. In fact, of Britain’s two major parties, it is Labour which has proved most reluctant to dump a failing leader, while the Tories have frequently been ready to unsheath the daggers and ruthlessly despatch their leaders to oblivion, often at the first sign of political stumbling or unpopularity.

Robert Peston

Could Boris Johnson cling on until November?

The prime minister is resigning today, and staying on as caretaker till the autumn, but that leaves very big decisions to be taken not only about who succeeds him but about the process for replacing him. I am told Boris Johnson rang Sir Graham Brady – chair of the 1922 backbench committee and de facto shop steward for Tory MPs – this morning. Yesterday, Brady told him he’d lost the confidence of the party and that he should resign. Johnson refused and said he was determined to battle on. This morning he telephoned Brady and said that, having reflected overnight, he would be quitting after all.

Coffee House

Live: Boris Johnson resigns as Prime Minister

Boris Johnson has announced his resignation but insisted he will stay on as Prime Minister until a new leader is appointed. Speaking on the steps of No. 10 this afternoon, Boris said he was 'immensely proud' of his achievements in office'. The PM's decision to step down came after over 50 of his ministers resigned and Nadhim Zahawi, who was appointed Chancellor on Tuesday, publicly said he should go. 2.15 p.m. – History won't look kindly on Boris James Kirkup writes... 'Them’s the breaks'. Those three words speak volumes about Boris Johnson’s ability, his character and his fears, says James Kirkup. Read the rest of the article here. 1.30 p.m – Is Boris like Trump? Freddy Gray writes...

Katy Balls

Boris resigns. What next?

15 min listen

After fighting words briefed out to the papers overnight, this morning, the Prime Minister has finally decided to resign. A statement is expected today. On the episode, Katy Balls discusses with Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson whether he should have gone sooner (and the implications for the post-politics speaking circuit) and the leadership race that is about to start.Produced by Cindy Yu.

Rod Liddle

The real reason Boris has gone

Boris, your leader, hasn’t gone because he handled ineptly the fall-out from deputy chief whip Chris Pincher’s well-lubricated non-consensual bum-fun. Nor even because he lied about all that stuff as well. He has gone because Conservative MPs no longer believe he could win a general election. Who will come next? I don’t much care: none of the fancied pack are Conservatives This may seem a blindingly obvious thing to point out, but when I made the same argument as to why Boris SHOULD go a few weeks ago in this magazine, it was met with a howled, anguished and rude response from many readers, as if they had blue dyed hair, were 13 years old and I had suddenly misgendered them. Dimbos. Listen, we all fasten our flags to the mast of a ship of fools from time to time.

Freddy Gray

The Tories will miss Boris now he’s gone

Boris Johnson was often talked about as the luckiest politician on earth — and in a sense he was. Outrageous fortune powered his ascent. A child of privilege, he always seemed to get away with it, no matter what it might be. In elections, his timing was almost miraculously perfect, culminating in his big win over the hapless Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. But Lady Luck turned out to be the cruellest mistress Boris ever had. She built him up to tear him down. Now that he’s going, many will delight in his demise. Many will be relieved. Those feelings won’t last. They hate him now. They’ll miss him soon. Nadhim Zahawi? Jeremy Hunt? Liz Truss? Ben Wallace? Tom Tugendhat? Really?

Kate Andrews

Why Rishi Sunak quit

On Tuesday, the last cabinet meeting with Sajid Javid as health secretary and Rishi Sunak as chancellor passed without any hint that either was about to resign. The ministers did not co-ordinate their resignations, but they had both been tipped over the edge by growing evidence that No. 10 had misled MPs by declaring Boris Johnson had no prior knowledge of Chris Pincher’s behaviour. Sunak had also grown tired of the Prime Minister’s economic ‘cake-ism’ – the fantasy of wanting both high spending and low taxes. The contradictions had become untenable. In that cabinet meeting, Johnson offered more cake. He was his usual ebullient self, promising a morale-raising speech to move on from recent woes. It was Michael Gove who confronted him.

James Forsyth

Boris is gone: the leadership contest now begins

In the end, the Prime Minister was damaged irreparably before he resigned on Thursday. The confidence vote wounded him. Then two by-election defeats revealed that people were voting tactically against the Tories. A party that tolerated Boris Johnson because he was a vote-winner now concluded he was an electoral liability: rebellions followed and then (finally) his resignation. But the Conservatives are stuck confronting a basic question: what next? The Tories are caught in a trap. One influential Tory MP who voted for Johnson in the no-confidence ballot told me, with a mixture of exhaustion and despair: ‘Please God, make it stop.’ That sums up the mood. The Tories had been hoping for some kind of divine intervention because they do not know what else to do.

Charles Moore

Thatcher and Boris: the problems of downfall

Few leaders could be as different in character as Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson, but one can compare their predicaments when colleagues turned on them. Both had large parliamentary majorities and were never defeated in any election they led, yet both faced internal coups. In both cases, there were/are good reasons why colleagues were fed up with their leaders. What was true in Mrs Thatcher’s case, however, and may well apply in Boris’s if he does go, is that her political assassination caused remorse, and immense, lasting division. As John Major understood and Michael Heseltine did not foresee, remorseful MPs tend to turn on the chief assassin and favour, almost paradoxically, the successor candidate who seems loyal to the ousted leader.

The Spectator

A Tory implosion

What is the purpose of a Conservative government? It’s a reasonable question for voters to ask. In 2019 Boris Johnson gave us a clear answer: he was a different type of politician. He would get Brexit done, then protect the public from the rising costs of government by freezing taxes. The public, he said, had had enough of weasel words and broken politics. He stood as an unconventional prime minister who would sweep away Westminster’s failing conventions. Instead, he is in danger of sweeping away the conventions that actually worked. The country is now being deprived of a functional government: one that is capable of planning longer than a fortnight ahead. For Johnson, survival is victory.

Michael Simmons

Boris’s premiership in seven graphs

Boris Johnson has just quit – forced out by the sheer number of resignations, leaving him without a government. He came into office promising to deliver Brexit. He pledged taxes would be frozen and the size of government would shrink. Everything was of course overtaken by Covid. Here’s a look at his premiership in charts and numbers. Boris is currently the 34th longest serving prime minister, having just today drawn level with Neville Chamberlain. He wants to stay on until party conference season in October – as it stands he’s 28 days behind Theresa May. The PM’s downfall was brought about after a record number of resignations. Since Tuesday over 100 cabinet secretaries, ministers and PPSs have resigned.

Matthew Parris

The truth about life as a gay Tory MP

Male Tory MPs molesting young men? Buttock-squeezing and groin-fumbling at a private members’ club? A middle-aged politician slipping into a dressing-gown ‘like a pound shop Harvey Weinstein, with his chest and belly hanging out’ to massage the neck of an Olympic rower? Such are the allegations. ‘What,’ you may think, ‘is the world coming to? It was never like this in my day!’ How wrong you’d be. It was very much like this in the 20th century. There is in fact something tragically old-fashioned about the whole story.

Coffee House

The 57 Tory ministers who resigned – forcing Boris to go

Boris Johnson has announced that he is resigning as Prime Minister after facing a tide of ministerial resignations. Below is the full list of cabinet ministers, junior ministers and other government employees who resigned, forcing the Prime Minister to act. Cabinet ministers who have resigned from Boris Johnson's government: 1. Oliver Dowden, party chairman (5.35 a.m. 24 June) 2. Sajid Javid, health secretary (6.02 p.m. 5 July) 3. Rishi Sunak, chancellor (6.10 p.m. 5 July) 4. Simon Hart, Wales Secretary (10.30 p.m. 6 July) 5. Brandon Lewis, Northern Ireland Secretary (6.49 a.m. 7 July) 6. Michelle Donelan, Education Secretary, (8.53 a.m. 7 July) Junior ministers, trade envoys and party officials who have resigned from Boris Johnson's government: 1.

Katy Balls

Suella Braverman announces Tory leadership bid

Boris Johnson has so far had four cabinet ministers resign and sacked one – in the form of Michael Gove. Now, one minister has come out publicly to say they will run to be a successor should there be a leadership contest. Step forward Suella Braverman. On Wednesday evening, the Attorney General gave an interview to ITV's Robert Peston in which she voiced her unhappiness over the Prime Minister's behaviour in recent days. Braverman – who until now was viewed as a staunch Johnson loyalist – said there was an overwhelming sense of despair among MPs so 'the time has come for the Prime Minister to step down'. Given she is one of many to say that, it wasn't necessarily headline news. It's also notable that she hasn't actually resigned.