andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2022-06-08 11:16 am
andrewducker) wrote2022-06-08 11:16 am
A few thoughts on what could happen next for Boris Johnson
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.)
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.)
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It would be a chance for Johnson to purge MPs by reselecting them. But it wouldn't help the Conservative Party at all.
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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.
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