There was a moment last Monday in the House of Commons when Keir Starmer was lost for words and then froze for a few seconds on the front bench. Unlike most of his MPs he could not even muster an angry gesticulation in Boris Johnson’s direction. Instead, Starmer sat motionless, staring and blinking at the prime minister across the dispatch box with a look of sheer contempt.
What the prime minister had just said about the leader of the opposition – that when he had been director of public prosecutions he “spent most of his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile” – was soon shown by fact checkers to be baseless. It was also – in the opinion of most MPs – deeply insensitive and gratuitous.
Even Tory MPs were appalled. “I put my head in my hands,” said Sir Charles Walker, the Conservative member for Broxbourne, who was in the Commons at the time. “It should not have been said.”
MPs on all sides of the House viewed the comment as far beyond acceptable boundaries of political knockabout and straight out of the Trump playbook. Within hours, lawyers for Savile’s victims were accusing Johnson of “weaponising their suffering” in an attempt to deflect attention from his own problems, and reported that those they represented were “angry, upset and disgusted” by the prime minister’s comments.
This was supposed to be Johnson’s time for contrition. He had come to the Commons to make a statement on an initial report into the “partygate” scandal by the senior civil servant Sue Gray. She had been told to pare back her report by the Metropolitan police – who are now investigating a dozen parties in Downing Street, including several attended by Johnson. Despite this, Gray had been highly critical in her broad summary, saying there had been serious failings of leadership at No 10 that had allowed a string of events to take place and develop at the heart of power, where she suggested an unprofessional drinking culture had taken root.
Many Tory MPs watched Johnson’s performance closely on Monday as they agonised over whether to send letters to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee, calling for the PM to go. So did members of their constituency associations. One Tory MP and former minister said he was feeling pressure from all directions. Conservatives in his association were very unhappy with Johnson, but he was also contacted regularly by MPs who were backing him. “They were asking if I would like 20 minutes with the prime minister. I said: ‘Well, I am not against having a meeting with him at all.’ But I told them I had asked to see him several times over the past couple of years to discuss serious policy matters, and had been ignored.”
The MP decided to bide his time, watch how the prime minister handled himself in the Commons, and keep in contact with his local party. When members of his association watched Johnson’s performance last Monday they were appalled by the Savile comments. “They emailed me to say they thought he should go. They said they thought there had to be a ballot, that he could not run the country any more.” As a result, the same MP – who has not yet been named as among those wanting a vote of confidence – said he will send a letter to Brady early this week making clear he no longer has confidence in the prime minister.
If it had been just a few MPs and a scattering of local Conservative associations that felt the Savile episode was a step too far, then the damage to Johnson might have been containable. But it went much further. Back in Downing Street there was also deep unhappiness. There, everyone had known that Johnson’s reaction to the Sue Gray report could well decide not only the prime minister’s fate, but their futures too. Aides to Johnson were aware that it could be make or break: that he just had to get the tone right.
After several meetings, it was agreed between the PM and his key aides on Monday morning that Johnson would adopt an apologetic tone and say sorry several times, even it the mea culpas became repetitive. However, according to accounts from several government sources, Johnson indicated that he was not prepared just to eat humble pie. He had been frustrated for months by the lack of “dirt” his advisers had provided him with to throw at Starmer at moments when he was under pressure, and he told them he was keen to deploy the Savile attack line, which had been drawn to his attention after appearing on rightwing websites. It is understood that Johnson was strongly advised not to do so by at least one aide – but pressed ahead anyway.
His decision backfired spectacularly. One of those most outraged by what happened in the Commons was Munira Mirza, Johnson’s head of policy inside Downing Street, who had worked with him since 2008. They had stuck together through thick and thin since he was mayor of London. But Mirza regarded the Savile slur as appallingly ill-judged and tasteless; after Johnson deployed it, she demanded her boss apologise publicly and did so to his face. But on this occasion he did not do as his most trusted aide wanted. While he backtracked a little both on Wednesday at prime minister’s questions and on Thursday in a media interview, his words fell far short of an apology.
On Thursday afternoon Mirza penned a blistering resignation letter. “You are aware of the reason for my decision,” she said. “I believe it was wrong for you to imply this week that Keir Starmer was personally responsible for allowing Jimmy Savile to escape justice. There was no fair or reasonable basis for that assertion. This was not the normal cut-and-thrust of politics; it was an inappropriate and partisan reference to a horrendous case of child sex abuse. You tried to clarify your position today but, despite my urging, you did not apologise for the misleading impression you gave.”
She went on: “Even now, I hope you find it in yourself to apologise for a grave error of judgment made under huge pressure. I appreciate that our political culture is not forgiving when people say sorry, but regardless, it is the right thing to do. It is not too late for you but, I’m sorry to say, it is too late for me.”
That evening three more senior officials – Johnson’s chief of staff Dan Rosenfield, his principal private secretary Martin Reynolds, and director of communications, Jack Doyle, quit their posts, apparently having been told to go by Johnson as he tried to give the impression that the clearout was part of an organised restructuring of Downing Street to refresh his administration.
That same evening the crisis for Johnson deepened. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak – the favourite to succeed him if he goes – deliberately distanced himself from the prime minister. Asked about the Savile slur, Sunak told a press conference: “With regard to the comments, being honest I wouldn’t have said it and I am glad the prime minister clarified what he meant.” On Friday night the health secretary Sajid Javid did the same saying Starmer had done a “good job” as DPP and “should be respected for it”. Just when Johnson needed unity most, his own choice of attack line had given his detractors and rivals at all levels a reason to desert him, that was nothing directly to do with parties. The cabinet had split, Downing Street was in turmoil with desks unoccupied, and local Tories were in revolt.
But the biggest question this weekend, which only Sir Graham Brady can answer, is how many of the 54 letters he must receive from Conservative MPs before he triggers a vote of confidence have already landed on his desk or in his inbox. As ever, Brady was politely refusing to say yesterday.
What is clear is that in the last few days support for Johnson has been ebbing away as the PM’s dwindling band of backers try in vain to lead his fightback. MPs who now want him to go come from all wings of the party. One Nation moderates from the Tory left like Peter Aldous and Gary Streeter have sent in their letters. As one party source said: “These are people who have spent their entire careers never saying boo to a goose. If they are on the warpath there’s a big problem.”
From the pro-Brexit right, the likes of Andrew Bridgen and the former schools minister Nick Gibb have also put in letters. Even Johnson “loyalists” like Walker, a former vice chair of the 1922 executive who admires the prime minister, wants him to leave now for the sake of his legacy and because he says the public has made up its mind about the parties and wants to move on from the trauma of lockdowns.
“It is in Boris’s hands at the moment,” Walker said, “but if he doesn’t act soon it will be taken out of his hands by the parliamentary party and then he is not in control of anything. It is an inevitable tragedy. He is a student of Greek and Roman tragedy. It is going to end in him going so I just want him to have some agency in that.”
While Johnson’s critics say there is no co-ordinated plot to remove him there are plenty of MPs doing the sums. Some say they think the number of letters to Brady is now “in the mid-40s” while others believe it is in “the early 30s”. All agree, however, that the number will grow in the coming days and is edging towards 54. A week ago, the consensus was that nothing would happen until the final police report and Gray report into No 10 parties were out. Now there is a view that things could happen earlier than that.
“I would not be entirely surprised if Sir Graham is calling a press conference on Monday or Tuesday, before the recess,” said a former minister who is wrestling with his own conscience about whether to put pen to paper.
Johnson is still insisting he can go on and will make big changes to his Downing Street operation. But doing so could prove increasingly difficult as the leadership threat grows. Nick Faith, director of the political and economic consultancy WPI Strategy, who used to work at the centre-right thinktank Policy Exchange, said filling key posts would be a problem for Johnson. “The vast majority of political and communications professionals would currently think twice about working in what appears to be a highly dysfunctional workplace,” he said. Johnson’s suggestion that he was turning for advice once more to election guru Lynton Crosby in some advisory role was another problem.
“The suggestion that the prime minister is taking strategic advice from external figures should serve as a warning to anyone thinking about applying for a full-time, senior role in No 10. It undermines their authority before they’ve even entered the building,” Faith added.
With several key desks at No 10 unfilled after allies left, the cabinet fracturing, and more MPs moving against the prime minister by the day, there is now a broad consensus that Boris Johnson’s time is running out.
“It is like all his layers of defence are being peeled away. And whatever he does makes things worse,” said a former minister. “This feels like the end of days.”
Departures
If Johnson is forced out of office, it will be an ironic vindication of his woozy ideas. No other modern prime minister has been expelled in similar circumstances, writes Nick Cohen
In his biography of Winston Churchill, Boris Johnson makes it clear he has no time for historians who claim that economic, cultural and social tides drive events. He tells the reader to believe instead the “great man” theory of history – to accept that “one man can make all the difference”.
If Johnson is forced out of office, it will be an ironic vindication of his woozy ideas. He will have been destroyed by his own lies and hypocrisies. In the fall of the Johnson administration, Boris Johnson would indeed have made all the difference.
No modern prime minister has been expelled from Downing Street in similar circumstances. They have resigned when they lost an election or have been forced out by colleagues.
Margaret Thatcher alienated so many Tory MPs with her attitude to Europe – and with a poll tax that provoked something close to a popular uprising – that they replaced her. Political calculation mingled with ideological argument as MPs hoped that a new leader could win the next election – as her successor, John Major, did in 1992.
The same mixture applied when Theresa May resigned in 2019 after failing to get her soft Brexit through the Commons. Johnson offered the Tory right a policy – a hard break with the EU – and the promise that his charisma would carry them to victory.
Tony Blair’s toxic fight with Gordon Brown coupled with the legacy of his decision to take the UK to war with Iraq ended his premiership in 2007.
The only resignations vaguely comparable to Johnson’s are those of Harold Wilson in 1976 and David Cameron in 2016. But Wilson, whose physical powers were failing, decided of his own volition that it was time to retire, while Cameron could not live with the enormous blunder of having taken the UK out of the EU by mistake.
Johnson is not in failing health. He has not lost a referendum or fought an unpopular war. No issue of national policy is at stake here. If he goes, it will be because the public cannot abide being governed by a phoney who forced them into lockdown while partying behind the doors of Downing Street.
Johnson can rest assured that the history books will remember him: not as a great man but as a great charlatan, whose fate was a salutary warning to all who came after him.
