I need to know when Boris Johnson will stop being Prime Minister

[andrewducker]

Poll #26545

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 33

View Respondents

Johnson will go

View Answers

Between now and the May local elections
10 (30.3%)

Straight after the May local elections
11 (33.3%)

Closer to the next general election in 2024
5 (15.2%)

Only if he loses the next general election
5 (15.2%)

SEWIWEIC
2 (6.1%)

Comments

[rhythmaning]

I'm not sure the wisdom of crowds can help answer this question.

I think he may stumble through to the May council elections, as an increasingly fractious Tory party keeps him in position for want of any viable alternative. The want of a decent, competent successor is real issue for the Tories, I believe - as many psychopathic tyrants do, Johnson cleared out many of the potential successors after assuming power.

Truss? Sunak? Patel?! Apparently the ERG are setting up Baker as a possible! I think we might find that we have a run of the worst prime minister ever - four times in a row!

But for all I know Johnson may be gone in a week if the legendary Sue Gray lays into him. Or if there are further leaks of more rule breaking.

I don't think he'll see out May, though.

[andrewducker]

I'm not usually looking for a solution to the question - more for different viewpoints.

[dewline]

Clearly, the ERG crew has to be removed from their seats first.

[danieldwilliam]

My answer of straight after the May local elections is my best estimate. He could easily go next week. He could potentially stay on until the general election.

I think he's probably done enough with Tory MP's to save himself over the coming weeks.

Main driver for thinking he'll go after the May local elections is...
1) he's considered an election winner - if he starts losing elections and being a visible electoral liability he loses a lot of his appeal to Tory MP's
2) the public are begining to associate Tory MP's with Johnson because they are defending him / not removing him. This is also begining to spread to the voters association of Johnson with the wider Tory Party
3) Voting intention and leadership rating polling is quite poor for the Tories at the moment. I don't see anything that will change that over the coming months.
4) Which leads me to assume that the May election will be very bad for the Tories. To paraphrase one Nothern Tory MP, local councillors are super activists and the sort of people who help you retain marginal seats.

When Tory MP's are confronted with the electoral reality of Johnson's new status with the electorate I think they will act.

As a counter-argument I'm not sure they see the alternatives as particularly appealing. Two of the front runners are small-state, low tax ideologues and that's not what many of them promised their voters. Tory Members are also a bit mental. So maybe he survives for lack of a palatable alternate.

So my current money (were I betting on this) would be Johnson to go in June and Hunt to replace him.

[andrewducker]

I think a fair number of them are hoping that this will blow over, and that by May the figures will be more to their liking.

I am hoping that they are wrong.

[danieldwilliam]

I think when the Prime Minister is being heckled by primary school children then this won't blow over. The immediate anger may be replaced by a slow sullen rage but that is probably worse for the Tory Party overall.

I think this may well cost them the next general election. If they aren't careful it will cost them the one after that.

[doubtingmichael]

Of course, Johnson doesn't care about any of long term effects on "his" party. The man who is on the record as saying "F*** business" undoubtedly says "F*** the Tories" in private on a regular basis. (My understanding is that one of his problems is that he has never bothered to build up good working relationships with other MPs. Though I doubt that would have helped much by this point.)

[coth]

I think hope this will die down and fear of alternatives will leave him in office til May, but bad performance for Tories in the local elections will be the last straw for the hopers. Then fear will be overcome and hope transferred to someone who might detoxify in time for 2023.

[rmc28]

I think I agree with this analysis.

Some MPs have said publicly they've sent letters to the 1922 Committee (to trigger a leadership vote of no confidence by MPs). How many more have been sent or may yet be sent after Sue Gray's report, or the steady drip of revelations by the dreaded Cummings, is all a bit of an unknown.

Certainly if the May election results are terrible for the party, I would expect there to be a lot more open discontent within the party. I don't think I have any confidence that Our Glorious Leader will voluntarily step down - when has he ever voluntarily taken responsibility or accountability? - but terrible election results might just rally the party to boot him out.

[andrewducker]

Oh yeah, he won't ever go voluntarily.

[dewline]

He'll dig in for as long as he can. He's just that stubborn, too.

[andrewducker]

Oh yeah, he won't ever go voluntarily.

[autopope]

I think the Tories underestimate public discontent at their peril.

Okay, so I'm in Edinburgh, which is a world unto itself. But last week something happened to me that has never happened before -- a middle-aged woman operating a cash register, evidently feeling chatty, launched into a vitriolic rant at me about Boris. I'm talking a fifty-something Scottish grandmother type of the "me, I'm naw political" type, suddenly firmly of the opinion that the prime minister is a sleazy liar who holds the little people in contempt.

It's not data or statistically rigorous but if the shop workers are getting radicalized, then it's clear that Boris is reaching the parts other politicians never make it to ... and not in a good way.

[andrewducker]

Also, schoolkids. And many ordinary Conservatives.

[calimac]

The reason Boris will survive is, who would replace him? The Tories have nobody with gravitas and respectability, and Labour is hopeless. When Thatcher went, at least Major (sleazy little Edwina Currie-canoodler that he was) and Hurd looked respectable. As for Labour being unelectable, the closest parallels, with the parties switched, is 2005, an election best described as "nobody won, but Labour lost least badly." Sick as people were of Blur/Bliar by then, they wanted Michael Howard and his gang even less. Something similar happened in 1992, actually. The tipping point for Boris is not how low he can go, but can he and everything the Tories stand for sink below popular estimation of Labour and what they would do in office. That's a much deeper pit.

[kerk_hiraeth]

When the ones with the real power in thr Tory party have found the right sucker to put in his place and not before.

kerk

[mountainkiss]

I am currently punting later rather than sooner for a few reasons:

(1) Theresa May survived a VONC with far less support than the PM and having lost rather than gained seats at a GE.

(2) I am not sure that any of the successors has wide-ranging support within the party or is seen to have it in the country. Sunak is the possible exception.

(3) 2022 is going to be a horrid year for the government due to cost of living rises, and I think the party may want this to be associated with the PM rather than his successor.

That said, if it is proven beyond doubt that he has knowingly lied to the House then after today I think he will have to go, and this is clearly a realistic possibility.

[andrewducker]

I think that pinning down "Knowingly" is going to be very tricky. And he won't go unless forced.

So it'll be down to whether Tory MPs feel that protecting him reduces the chances of re-election.

[mountainkiss]

If Gray has multiple witnesses saying that they told him directly and he still holds out, it’s going to be very interesting.

Right now I don’t see any reason for witnesses to lie to protect him.

[andrewducker]

Me either. Personally, I expect him to go very soon (if enough MPs find their nerve) or straight after the election (if they don't).

I don't expect him to leave for lying, because he's the judge, jury, and executioner on the ministerial code, and I expect him to simply pardon himself. It might be enough to make a bunch more MPs decide he has to go though.