Boris Johnson resigns as MP

[Ag3ma]

Resignation statement in full as Boris Johnson steps down

The former UK prime minister has resigned as a MP, saying there is no evidence that he misled Parliament.

www.bbc.co.uk

In a fit of pique, British ex-PM Boris Johnson has resigned as MP. Johnson attended covid lockdown parties in contravention of law (that would be the very laws his own government produced whilst he was PM, investigated by the police and for which he was fined). What has occurred is that the Parliamentary Privileges Committee have examined statements that he made to Parliament about the issue and concluded that he lied to Parliament, for which he was given the slap on the wrist of a 10-day suspension from Parliament.

Johnson reacted to this by deciding to resign, claiming he was "driven out", gracelessly taking no responsibility for his own onduct, and generally whining, moaning, throwing tired right-wing cliches of the moment ("witch hunt", "kangaroo court", "reverse the 2016 referendum", etc.). Also resigning as MPs immediately are two of Johnson's close allies, Nadine Dorries and Nigel Adams.

Johnson also had his PM resignation honours appointments accepted by PM Sunak. These were largely an exercise in gross cronyism, handing out awards to a bunch of grotesque mediocrities whose only really accomplishments were their slavish loyalty to him. However, some of his expected honours have not been accepted, for instance attempting to raise the aforementioned Dorries to the House of Lords.

Whilst Johnson was not "driven out" of Parliament, I think the parliamentary Conservative Party very much have decided that his day is done. Despite some staunch but ever-declining support within the party for Johnson, the overall move has been to shut the door on him, perhaps in contrast to the US Republican Party's resolute failure to tackle Donald Trump. Johnson obviously did not relish life on the backbenches.

I doubt that Johnson plans to go away quietly. He has already lobbed several grenades at the PM on his way out, and conspicuously stirred by saying he was leaving parliament "for now". It just remains to be seen what trouble he plans to cause, and how he plans to do it.

 

[Baffle]

A man with a lot of mouth and not a lot of trousers, which he nevertheless seems unable to keep on.

He's a very good example of what They think of Us.

 

[meiam]

It's always weird when it these kind of scandal that take people down. Like, nothing about this revealed anything about him. He lied, which everybody knew and he doesn't care about other, again nothing surprising. Yet that's what killed him, not reneging on the brexit and all the bald face lies during the campaign. Or the blatant corruption. All of that was fine. He went to a party and lied about it, something so minor compared to everything else.

 

[laggyteabag]

Like most pests, I have no idea if this will truly mark the end of Boris Johnson, or if he will someday crawl back into the night. However, between this, and the recent second indictment of Trump, I have found this past week to be incredibly cathartic.

 

[Ag3ma]

He went to a party and lied about it, something so minor compared to everything else.

Ah, but the trick is what he was lying about.

What he did was tell everyone that they had to stay at home, not see their friends and relatives and go out and enjoy themselves, otherwise they'd face getting fined. Like, people's relatives and friends died and they couldn't go to the funeral. In fact, here's the queen herself, sitting all on her own in a near-deserted cathedral during the funeral of her husband, because she followed the rules.


What infuriated the public and brought down Boris was not so much the lying, but the fact he and his chums had been ignoring the strict and depressing rules they imposed on everyone else. That's what finished him. All lying did was put off the inevitable torrent of public fury when it turned out what a hypocritical shit he was. His resignation now is just a reflection of the fact he's been thoroughly taken down and his political ambitions to return to power quickly are in total ruin.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

While the initial pleasure of seeing him storm off sulkily is brief, like a spoilt toff kid with his pants full of dump, he ain't gonna suffer any real consequences. Even not taking in to account the cushty palliative career landings in the realms of Telegraph columnists, the ground is more fertile for embittered wealthy sociopath dads to just start their own psycho cult of scams than it's ever been.


Slightly related, but the breaking of this news did help understand a bit more why a news sharing account seems to replace all "L"s and "R"s with "W"s at least. Though am not certain if jokes are happening, is quite confusing.

 

[SilentPony]

Huh. Wow this is big story and I haven't seen it reported much. Guess he picked a good weekend for it.

 

[CM156]

If he hadn't renounced his American citizenship, he could be running for president right now.

 

[Dalisclock]

If he hadn't renounced his American citizenship, he could be running for president right now.

Wait, he was born in the US?

Holy shit. He was.

Yet another thing to be ashamed of as an American.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Yet another thing to be ashamed of as an American.

You won't even notice the difference.

 

[CM156]

Wait, he was born in the US?

Holy shit. He was.

Yet another thing to be ashamed of as an American.

Until 2017, Boris Johnson could have run for President of the United States.

 

[Dalisclock]

Until 2017, Boris Johnson could have run for President of the United States.

Though he'd have to live here for 14 years first, doing whatever it is that BoJo does when he's not an MP.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Until 2017, Boris Johnson could have run for President of the United States.

Hmmm, Bojo running the US, and Trump running the UK. Wonder how that would have turned out.

 

[CM156]

Though he'd have to live here for 14 years first, doing whatever it is that BoJo does when he's not an MP.

I stand corrected on that point, I had forgotten about that.
Although, fun fact: if Ted Cruz hadn't given up his Canadian citizenship, he could have been appointed as Governor General.

Hmmm, Bojo running the US, and Trump running the UK. Wonder how that would have turned out.

Can anyone tell me you wouldn't pay good money to see Trump handle a few sessions of PMQs?

 

[Trunkage]

Can anyone tell me you wouldn't pay good money to see Trump handle a few sessions of PMQs?

Only if John Bercow came back to preside over the proceedings

 

[Ag3ma]

I think one of the most damning things about Johnson is the calibre of his biggest supporters: Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel, Nadine Dorries, etc.

They are all lightweights and, frankly, awful people. Johnson gave them opportunities that no other Tory leader would because he favoured sycophancy over competence - remembering of course his night of the long knives where he threw a load of the most experienced and potentially talented MPs out of the party.

This is also one thing about Boris which should never be forgotten: he was weak. He had charm with both other MPs and the public, but his competence at governance was dubious and his judgement poor. Mostly, he was weak in character: amoral, greedy, cowardly, needy to please and be liked. That's why he surrounded himself with weak people who depended on his patronage. And why he ended up torpedoing his own career, because in the harsh glare of being at the top, his flaws would always emerge from behind the superficial charm.

 

[Bedinsis]

Welp, I hope he'll have fun building model buses, or whatever he'll do instead of politics.

 

[Ag3ma]

Welp, I hope he'll have fun building model buses, or whatever he'll do instead of politics.

In the year since he resigned as PM, he has earnt millions of pounds. This is because there are always a bunch of people willing to throw money at one-time high ranking politicians to give them speeches - mostly in Johnson's case in the USA. Secondly, Boris Johnson used to be a journalist (with the Daily Telegraph) earning I think well over £200k a year. There's not quite the same riches available as the after-dinner speaking circuit, but an exceptionally healthy salary nonetheless. He's going to live it large, paid huge sums to screw with any and all his perceived enemies, and possibly even try to mount a comeback.

In fact, so busy has he been raking it in that in the last year, Boris Johnson has attended a grand total of, er, four Parliamentary votes. He doesn't care about governance and the boring day job of representing his constituents. He's been going to Westminster mostly just to try to shit over his successors and boost himself back into the party leadership. (There's a rumour he backed Liz Truss because he knew she'd make a mess of it and give him an opportunity for a quick return - I just don't think he expected she would collapse that quickly.) I strongly suspect that's a lot about why his support in the party has folded, because I don't think most other MPs like their peers going off to feather their own nests, popping back just to stir up chaos and dissent. It's disrespecting Parliament and thus them.

 

[Baffle]

In the year since he resigned as PM, he has earnt millions of pounds. .

Coming back to this since he's in the news again today because someone was willing to tell us what we already knew: he's a massive liar, he lies to people's faces and thinks nothing of it, and there's absolutely zero chance he felt the lockdown rules actually applied to him. And I have to say that I think it's pretty likely that the people willing to give him millions of pounds probably think they didn't apply to them either.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Coming back to this since he's in the news again today because someone was willing to tell us what we already knew: he's a massive liar, he lies to people's faces and thinks nothing of it, and there's absolutely zero chance he felt the lockdown rules actually applied to him. And I have to say that I think it's pretty likely that the people willing to give him millions of pounds probably think they didn't apply to them either.

IIRC, a number of them demonstrated that they didn't think the rules applied to them. Possibly along with Bojo. And, I'm not sure they were wrong. Police going after them any time soon?