A few thoughts on what could happen next for Boris Johnson

[andrewducker]

He won the VONC. This is what I wanted, and what I predicted a few days ago when I said, over on Twitter and Facebook: Funniest outcome: enough letters go in to have a No Confidence vote against Johnson, he then wins it, and then the Conservatives catastrophically lose the two by-elections.

So, next steps are to lose the two by-elections 1 and 2 on the 23rd of June (or, at the least, suffer massive swings).

But before that we have a more interesting one - an upcoming vote on breaking international law on the Northern Ireland Protocol. 148 Conservative MPs voted against him in the no-confidence vote. It needs only 40 to do so on this bill (which is remarkably contentious) and he can't pass it.

At which point, last time around, he called a general election. Doing so again, and winning it, would absolutely cement him back into power.

The big question is - would he win it? It doesn't look like it, but Johnson might take the risk...

(My preferred outcome would be a Labour government dependent on the Lib Dems and SNP to pass things, with both of them insisting on electoral reform as essential.)

Comments

[i_kender]

I completely agree with you. But then, I also thought he would be long by now (I was predicting by the end of Feb) and I am flabbergasted he's managed to cling on to power for this long. But he is a slippery pig, and it just highlights the woeful political and voting system we have currently.

Can't we just riot en-masse and burn things? like the French Revolution? Let them eat cake until they burst etc. ?

[andrewducker]

I don't think we're in a rioting place just yet.

Johnson hasn't gone because he's winning votes. His own supporters need to bring him down, or he needs to call and lose an election. Fingers crossed over all of that!

[i_kender]

Ha, speak for yourself! I am most definitely in a rioting place, and have been for a while now. My fury knows no bounds.

I wonder if it's a British characteristic thing, not rioting. Like the innate queuing ability.

[andrewducker]

We send people to jail for it:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/feb/23/almost-1000-jailed-riot-related-offences

[i_kender]

Mmm hmm, yep, I know. And rightly so.

I still would, though. Worth it.

[rhythmaning]

If this were France, we - or perhaps they - world have been out on the streets for months.

I went on several anti Brexit marches. They were too peaceful! We - or perhaps they - should have smashed up the West End and beaten up a few policemen!

This government's legislation against peaceful protest is a disgrace.

[andrewducker]

Would you have wanted to do when *they* would also have taken to the streets?

I'd much rather fix things through democracy than 48% of the population fighting the other 52% in the streets...

[rhythmaning]

Well, we could start with 41% of the Tory party beating the shit out of the other 59%...

But I guess you're right - I can't see myself rioting, so perhaps following a democratic route would be preferable!

I can't help thinking that we're likely to have Scottish independence before the Labour party signs up to PR, though - which I see as an essential for democratic progress!

[andrewducker]

Unite switched to supporting PR last year. I'm not saying it's likely, but it's looking less unlikely:
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/unite-vote-to-oppose-first-past-the-post-hailed-important-shift-in-campaign-for-fair-votes/

Scottish Independence is stuck on 45-48%. It might make it over the line, but I'm not putting money on it either!

[hilarita]

I think that perhaps there's some mileage not in rioting, but in putting graffiti all over the bloody place, to make our discontent visible. Even if it's only in chalk, so it's gone next time it rains.

[cmcmck]

I had also been pondering on whether Bojo would be stupid enough to call a snap election.

[andrewducker]

If he sees it as a choice between being forced out or taking them all down with him, then I'm hopeful for his selfishness!

[mtbc]

I think you stand a fair chance of things happening as you're hoping, we're in for an interesting year.

[anef]

If we had a GE now, we couldn't end up worse off than we are now - could we? I mean the Tories couldn't get more votes.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely.

It would be a chance for Johnson to purge MPs by reselecting them. But it wouldn't help the Conservative Party at all.

[bens_dad]

I mean the Tories couldn't get more votes.

Votes, no.

Seats ? I fear they could.
With Labour, the two lots of Nationalists, Lib Dems and Greens, there are plenty of places for the Tory votes to go without the Tories actually losing a seat.

I am reminded of the four-way marginal Inverness, Nairn and Lachaber seat in the 1992 general election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverness,_Nairn_and_Lochaber_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1990s where the winning candidate polled 26.0% (yes twenty-six percent) of the vote.

[andrewducker]

Definitely can happen. Not likely to happen to many seats in Scotland, based on the last couple of elections. I think people are thinking more tactically this time too.

[calimac]

Assorted thoughts here:

1) Remember when the Conservatives were losing all those by-elections after scraping out a victory in 1992? Good times. (Some time during the depths of the Blair era, I suggested to a Conservative friend that the worst thing that ever happened to the party, from the point of view of supporting it, was that it won the 1992 election, and she didn't disagree.)

2) But if BJ called an election now, I wonder if there'd be enough enthusiasm for other parties for them to do any better. Except the SNP. The SNP should do fine.

2a). It'd be a little like 2005, with different labels. Voters no longer wanted the government but they didn't want the opposition either. Labour didn't win that one, they just lost least badly. Same could happen for the Conservatives here: actually I wonder if it didn't already happen in '17 and '19.

3) "Labour ... dependent on the Lib Dems and SNP ... with both of them insisting on electoral reform." But considering how thoroughly and absolutely the Lib Dems muffed that issue in the coalition, I wonder if they've learned any better how to handle this.

[andrewducker]

1) Absolutely. Utter incompetence and scandal for 4 years utterly ruined them for a decade.
2) I think there's enough enthusiasm for getting rid of Johnson - I agree that neither Labour nor Lib Dems are very attractive.
2b) The polls are very-much indicating a Conservative loss here. Labour are around 7% ahead on average.
3) I'd really really hope so.

[danieldwilliam]

The polls also flatter the Greens who are polling on a few percent but won't put up candidates in most seats. The Labour lead of 7% is probably a real lead of 9% when people see who they can actually in practice vote for on the day.

[andrewducker]

This is true.

[andrewducker]

This is true. They'll be funneled into voting Labour in most contituencies. Might make a chunk of a difference.

[xenophanean]

I think that the electorate would boot him out if a GE was called now. Not sure about 6 months time. He's as good a self-publicist as he is awful a politician.

[andrewducker]

I think we might have reached the point where it doesn't matter what he says because nobody believes him anymore.

[penta]

Thought from the US via a temperamental keyboard:

Does any party besides the Tories have the money to fight a snap GE?

[danieldwilliam]

Probably - there are much tighter limits on election spending in the UK than the US so money is less of a factor.

[danieldwilliam]

My thoughts in no particular order or structure


I think the Tories will lose the two by-elections. At this point it will properly land with a few more Tory MP's that they are in very real danger of not just losing the next General Election but of putting themselves out of power for decades.

I think it is unlikely that the Labour Party can win a majority assuming the SNP vote holds up. However, when the Labour Party has won majorities of UK seats I believe they have tended to win majorities of English seats - so it is not impossible and a full on rainbow coalition might not be needed.

The Labour Party have some options with House of Commons No Confidence votes. If Johnson loses the vote on the NI Protocol the Opposition parties could bring a motion of No Confidence in the Prime Minister - which if he loses would (certainly constitutionally ought) to him being removed as Prime Minister before he asks for a dissolution. By convention Starmer as leader of the largest opposition party would probably be appointed Prime Minister and would remain so until he in turn lost a No Confidence vote.

I don't see the Tories winning a snap General Election. People seem genuinely very angry at Boris Johnson. At the best of times they are pretty sceptical about General Elections mostly intended to shore up the power of governing party by gaming the rules. I expect they will be enraged by a snap General Election intended to shore up the personal power of Johnson. More, I think that voters are beginning to firmly link Johnson and Tory MP's, the one being enabled by the other who are more fearful of losing their own jobs than in doing the right thing. Once that association is made, difficult to shift and it runs the risk of becoming generic rather than specific - that voters hold the Tory Party in contempt because of how they have shown themselves to be and behave rather than specifically because the Tory MP's are supporting Johnson. It may damage them for a long time if left to fester for much longer. (I pray in aid the Major Government of 1992 -97).

If the Liberal Democrats do not insist on electoral reform and the Scottish National Party do not insist on the absolute right to call independence referendums whenever they want before agreeing to put Starmer in office then they are fools of the worst kind.

[andrewducker]

I'm not *so* convinced by Tiverton/Honiton. It's a massive change, and it requires a lot of Labour voters to switch to the Lib Dems, who were in third place at the last election. Wakefield seems a lot more likely. But one can hope!

If the Labour party had a really charismatic person in the leadership then I'd expect a whitewash. Sadly for them they've got someone who nobody actually seems to care about, who is doing well purely because he's not Boris Johnson.

Agreed on a snap general election.

And yes, I very much worry about them being fools of the worst kind.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm not sure that Starmer is doing well just because he isn't Boris Johnson. He has some qualities that people often value in their leaders. Those qualities have gone a bit out of style in recent, more media-savvy decades, and perhaps people assumed they were implicit in being a British politician, and people are perhaps noticing that they miss and value those qualities when they see them lacking in Johnson and those around him.

[andrewducker]

What kind of thing are you thinking of?

Most of the ones I can think of are fairly obvious like "Isn't a massive liar". (Although he's already broken most of the pledges he made when he stood for Labour leadership, from my understanding)

[danieldwilliam]

Well, not being a massive liar is one. Along with not being so bald faced a liar that it is obvious he doesn't care if you believe him or not.

Solid, dependable, measured, considered, thoughtful, honest, hard-working, ethical, honourable - that sort of thing.

Along with being able to have a plan that goes further forward than the next time he is asked a difficult question and which survives contact with reality best out of three.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm told that he reminds some people of Clement Attlee.

[andrewducker]

I'm totally in favour of that kind of thing, which is why I'm unnerved by how much Starmer has changed direction "because of circumstances"

This kind of thing: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/31/boris-johnson-dishonesty-keir-starmer-labour-abandoned-pledges

Which is clearly much less bad than Johnson, but still not at a level I'd like.