Boris By-Election Bonanza

Johnson and Dorries quitting could trigger a Sunak leadership crisis.

Stuart Mitchell/@IncMonocle

It seems incredible to think that the man who led the Conservatives to that massive 2019 election victory has now stepped down as an MP completely.

Whatever people say about Boris Johnson, he was an undefeated election winner who harnessed the Brexiteer-voting coalition to secure some truly astonishing electoral gains.

I have to say the way in which we have seen Johnson (and Liz Truss) forced out without voters having a say, frankly it stinks.

It is bad for democracy. I’m still surprised Johnson didn’t try and call a ‘back me or sack me’ General Election when it was clear some Tory MPs were planning to force him out.

Labour will be delighted that they never actually had to go to the trouble of beating Johnson at an election.

I suspect he is still the Tory Leader they would have feared the most, whatever they pretend in public.

Johnson’s resignation statement is pretty lively. Part of it reads:

“When I left office last year the Government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened.

“Just a few years after winning the biggest majority in almost half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk.

“Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do.

“We need to show how we are making the most of Brexit and we need in the next months to be setting out a pro-growth and pro-investment agenda.

“We need to cut business and personal taxes - and not just as pre-election gimmicks - rather than endlessly putting them up.

“We must not be afraid to be a properly Conservative Government.

“Why have we so passively abandoned the prospect of a Free Trade Deal with the US?

“Why have we junked measures to help people into housing or to scrap EU directives or to promote animal welfare?

“We need to deliver on the 2019 manifesto, which was endorsed by 14 million people.

“We should remember that more than 17 million voted for Brexit.

“I am now being forced out of Parliament by a tiny handful of people, with no evidence to back up their assertions, and without the approval even of Conservative party members let alone the wider electorate.

“I believe that a dangerous and unsettling precedent is being set.”

I think one of the reasons that so many voters are now disgruntled with the Conservative Government is because they have been sidelined in the decision-making, having voted for a Johnson-led party in 2019.

To go from that to Liz Truss (who was at least voted for by Conservative members) to Rishi Sunak I think could prove to be a major error.

I know that many readers of Heaver News will not be big fans of Johnson. But surely voters should have ultimately made the call on all of this.

Are the Tories seriously more likely to win the next election with Sunak leading them instead of Johnson?

Are the many Leavers who voted Conservative for the first time ever in 2019 seriously going to vote for a Sunak-led party that seems to be increasingly led around by the establishment blob?

I doubt it. But at least some voters will soon have their say.

Because Sunak now has to deal with two upcoming by-elections, both in Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency and Mid Bedfordshire after Nadine Dorries stood down.

The irony is this could all lead to a massive leadership crisis for Sunak himself. The Mid Bedfordshire constituency had over a 24,000 vote majority for the Tories at the last election.

If they don’t manage to hold that seat at the upcoming by-election then perhaps there will be one more Tory leadership crisis before the next General Election.