Boris Johnson has decided to reopen the box of thunder for the “Tories” with his temporary dismissal from Parliament and the threat of political revenge in the style of Donald Trump. In his resignation letter as a deputy for the “Partygate” investigation, the former “premier” harshly lashed out at Rishi Sunak and accused him of betraying the conservative agenda with which he achieved his absolute majority in 2019.
“I’m not the only one who thinks there is a witch hunt going on to get back at Brexit and ultimately overturn the 2016 referendum result,” Johnson wrote. “My replacement has been the necessary first step, and I think there has been a concerted effort to be able to achieve that.”
“Why have we passively abandoned the prospect of a trade deal with the United States?” Johnson lamented. “Why have we decided to trash the initiative to renounce EU directives? (…) We need to make the most of Brexit, and we need to do it in the coming months with a pro-growth and pro-pro -investment”.
At the time of his resignation as an MP – after receiving the conclusion of the parliamentary committee that has stipulated that he deliberately lied when he said that the Covid rules had not been broken in Downing Street – Johnson recalled how the Conservative Party was behind in the polls ” by just a handful of points” at the time of his resignation as Conservative leader and how “those gaps have widened massively” since Rishi Sunak’s arrival at Downing Street last October.
“A few years after winning the largest majority in almost half a century, we clearly run the risk of losing it,” warned Johnson, thus extending his recipe for the next elections. “Our party urgently needs to recapture momentum and conviction in what this country can do.”
Johnson acknowledged his sadness at leaving Parliament “for now”, fueling speculation about his political “rentrée”. The resignation of his seat for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which he had held since 2015 after his double term as mayor of London, will force the calling of special elections in which the possible Labor candidate, Danny Beales, has the upper hand.
Another deputy allied to Boris Johnson, Nigel Adams, presented his resignation on Saturday, in the prelude to what may be a cascade of resignations in the “Tory” seats in solidarity with the former “premier”, a situation that could trigger a new crisis of unforeseeable consequences within the Conservative Party.
The resignation as MP of her ally Nadine Dorries in the Conservative stronghold of Mid Besfordshire (where she had a comfortable majority of 24,000 votes) has sparked speculation that Johnson could run in another special election for that seat. Dorries, who had been nominated by Johnson himself for the House of Lords, tendered her resignation hours before her former supporter slammed her own door.
The deadline for the presentation of the candidacies ends on Monday and at that moment the doubts about how and when Johnson’s political revenge will take shape, who could also choose to wait for the 2024 general elections, will be cleared up. The designation of candidates must be approved in any case by the Conservative Party, and the truth is that the former “premier” is running out of allies in his ranks beyond a handful of loyalists on the hard wing (despite continuing to have the support of the majority of Tory voters…
Angela Rayner, number two in the Labor Party, criticized Johnson as “a coward who has lost respect for his voters.” According to Ryaner, the decision of the former “premier” to resign before the Partygate parliamentary committee announced its conclusions, has been a flight forward to avoid “the humiliation of a suspension as a parliamentarian.”
The privileges committee, chaired by Labor Harriet Harman (criticized by Johnson for her “blatant bias”), will finally meet on Monday and will make its conclusions public in the coming days. The committee planned to recommend Johnson’s ten-day suspension for lying before the House of Commons, which would have automatically led to a special election in his district.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
