Nothing has changed. Johnson is finished

The British people do not want a cheat and a liar in No 10

You could say nothing has changed. Boris Johnson is a huckster and serial liar, lacking a single shred of integrity. He remains in office. And his premiership is surely finished.

It has long been obvious that Johnson’s only purpose in Downing Street is to cling to power. He’s a fantasist as much as narcissist, imagining he can yet rise to Churchillian heights. He can delude himself that this week’s leadership vote brought a “decisive result”. But, as with everything else, few will believe him.

In truth it was a worthless technical victory. More than 40 per cent - 148 - of his own MPs, and a majority of backbenchers, voted to throw Johnson out. Whatever he pretends, he can no longer govern his party. The open revolt of so many Tory MPs has robbed him of a parliamentary majority. The rebels now have nothing to lose from opposing every rancid measure he brings to the House of Commons.

The prime minister will never change. Even as he faced this week’s vote he refused to repent his attendance at illegal No 10 parties: “I would do it again”. So much for the flimsy pretence of humility that he initially hoped would dig him out of the hole.

Policy and principle have played no part in Johnson’s political rise. He once posed as a centrist, One-Nation Tory. A few naive souls were taken in. The pretence has made way for Trumpian populism. The celebrations of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee were shaped to reawaken unity in a nation facing immense economic and social stresses. Johnson’s strategy is to shore up his position by fostering anger and division. 

Every policy pronouncement emanating from No 10 is measured against its utility in stoking culture and identity wars. The row with Brussels over post-Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, plans to render refugees to camps in Rwanda, laws to limit peaceful protests - all are so-called wedge issues calculated to rally Johnson’s right-wing supporters.

The game though is lost. For those who warned from the outset of the toxic mix of entitlement and mendacity that define Johnson’s character it has been a long wait. But the accumulation of lies and casual disregard for decency are cutting through. It says something when the government’s anti-corruption chief, the Tory MP John Penrose, resigns in order to vote against a prime minister he deems unfit for office. 

The force of Sue Gray’s report into the Covid lockdown partying in Downing Street rested in the way, albeit framed in the understated prose of a Whitehall official, it saw the prime minister as he is. The clink of wine glasses in No 10 while the country observed strictures barring them from the death-beds of close family members spoke eloquently to the smug entitlement that has always described Johnson’s worldview.

The prime minister’s response - to claim vindication and then propose a dilution of the code requiring ministers to meet certain basic standards - underscored his lifelong refusal to submit to rules made for the “little people”. He has always got away with it, so why change now? Such has been the degradation of the nation’s public life that civil servants now speak privately of the “stench” of corruption in No 10.

The little people - “plebs” he called them while a student at Oxford - have also caught on. The boos that greeted Johnson and his wife when he arrived for a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s during the Jubilee celebrations provided vivid confirmation of the message from the opinion polls. The voters - including those who turn out to cheer the monarchy - do not want to be governed by a cheat and a liar so transparently motivated only by personal ambition.

Britain is falling into an economic hole. Its standing abroad has never been lower. Growth has stalled, the government has lost control of inflation, and families in every corner of the land are struggling to make ends meet. Voters in so-called “red wall northern seats are beginning to grasp that Johnson’s levelling-up project is a fraudulent pose. In the southern shires, habitual Tory voters have run out of patience with the lies. As far as the next election goes, all the indicators are flashing red.

Change or lose. The former cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt’s description of the choice facing his party is impossible to gainsay. I suppose it is just possible that Conservatives will choose to charge directly at Labour’s guns. I struggle to believe, though, that even a party once known as the stupid party is quite that stupid. 

It now faces likely defeats in two by-elections later this month, followed by the outcome of a House of Commons investigation into the lies told by the prime minister to parliament. Johnson is deservedly done for.  

.