Front Burner - Bye-bye, Boris Johnson

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was known as a "Teflon" leader for his ability to withstand scandal after scandal. But after surviving "Partygate'' and a slew of other missteps, Johnson finally met a scandal he couldn't outrun. Johnson said on Thursday he would step down as prime minister after more than 50 of his own government officials resigned. But he's also pledged to stay on until a new Conservative leader is chosen. Today, the New Statesman's Rachel Cunliffe explains what finally led to Johnson's downfall, what his resignation speech really means and what it all says about the state of British democracy.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was known as a Teflon leader for his ability to withstand scandal after scandal. Eleven justices of the UK Supreme Court agreed unanimously that the Prime Minister's decision to ask the Queen to suspend Parliament for five weeks was unlawful. Earlier today, a long-awaited report on the so-called Partygate scandal was sent to Downing

Street. Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Simons spent tens of thousands of pounds on lavish renovations of their Downing Street flat, then tried to get a Tory donor to secretly pay for it. But this week, Johnson finally met one he couldn't outrun. Boris Johnson's leadership of the Conservative Party and the UK has been in free fall since Tuesday when two of his top ministers quit, saying they had no confidence in their former ally. And since then, barely an hour has passed where a minister or aide hasn't

quit. I know that there will be many people who are relieved and perhaps quite a few who will also be disappointed. And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them's the brakes. Today, I'm speaking to Rachel Cunliffe, the Senior Associate Editor of The New Statesman. She'll explain what finally led to Johnson's downfall and what it says about the state of British democracy. Hi, Rachel. Thank you for making the time on what is an extremely busy day for you. Thanks for inviting me on the show. It's such a pleasure to have you. So yesterday, of course, Boris Johnson finally caved in to the pressure coming from across his own house. And when he appeared outside 10 Downing Street,

what did he have to say? Tell me about that. appeared outside 10 Downing Street. What did he have to say? Tell me about that. Well, it wasn't really a classic resignation speech. There was real anger and frustration there from the Prime Minister explaining that though he very much wanted to stay on, it was the will of his party, Conservative MPs, to find a new leader. Of course, it's painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself. But as we've seen at Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful. When the herd moves, it moves. And therefore, he understood that that process was going to happen.

He said he intended to stay on until they had a new leader in place. he intended to stay on until they had a new leader in place. There was no sense of understanding, shall we say, for what it was that had led to this. He didn't express any regrets. He did not apologise. He didn't show any contrition. In fact, he talked about the herd instinct that had led his party to decide that they wanted a new leader, very much suggesting that it was a sort of Westminster mania that had led to this rather than any kind of personal failing. He called the decision to get rid of him eccentric. And in the last few days, I've tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we're delivering so much and when we have such a

vast mandate and when we're actually only a handful of points behind in the polls even in mid-term after quite a few months of pretty relentless sledging and he also sort of made a jibe at his own MPs by thanking his security staff saying that they were the only people who did not leak things. I want to thank the wonderful staff here, Tahira No. 10, and of course the Chequers, and our fantastic prop force detectives, the one group, by the way, who never leak. So, as I said, not your classic resignation speech.

Yeah, although it does seem classic Boris Johnson. OK, so this, of course, followed, I guess what he calls mania, but a wild couple of days in which 50 members of his own party submitted their resignation. It was really dizzying watching this from Canada. So I can't imagine what it's been like for you. Talk to me about what sparked this truly incredible exodus, like how we got here. I've actually got to correct you there. I think it was 60 rather than 50. Oh my God, seriously?

Yeah, but I've been missing them. A couple of them happened while I was on air on Wednesday. It was truly astounding. This particular chain of events was set off on Tuesday evening when the health secretary, Sajid Javid, sent in his letter of resignation, which was very quickly followed by that of the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. It has been a whirlwind 24 hours for the Prime Minister after two unexpected high profile cabinet resignations. The outgoing chancellor said the public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously. I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning. While the outgoing Health Secretary said the British people rightly expect integrity from their government. We may not have always been popular but we have been competent. Sadly the public are concluding that we are now neither. It was Wednesday morning when they really started coming.

And when I say started coming, it was very, very difficult to keep up. A number of them happened during Prime Minister's questions, when the Prime Minister was facing questions from MPs on the floor of the House of Commons. from MPs on the floor of the House of Commons. One of my favourites is that five ministers decided to save paper and design on the same letter. Like a joint resignation. And on Wednesday, the Prime Minister also faced what's called the House of Commons Liaison Committee, which is the chairs

of all the other parliamentary committees who get to get together and quiz the Prime Minister. This is a regular occurrence, it just happened to be scheduled for Wednesday. And that was a truly, truly bizarre performance. It went on for about two hours. The first hour and a half weren't even about this particular scandal. They were just going through all the chairs of these committees, talking about the Prime Minister's failings on defence and transport and business and the economy, and all kinds of other things. And then right at the end, they started addressing this. During that committee, six more ministers had resigned, if my counting is correct. And they sort of asked him if his intentions were to stay on, and he said yes.

Now, how much consideration are you giving to the prospect of your resignation? I'm happy to tell you that I'm getting on with the job that I was elected to do, and that is what I'm going to do. So all these problems are basically somebody else's fault? No, I think that it was one of these people who's left. Who is responsible? Who should be held accountable? I am responsible. I wonder if we could go through like the scandal that finally kind of precipitated all of this, right? Like the scandal that I guess led to his final, final downfall.

The interesting thing, if you've been following Boris Johnson's career, the ironic thing you could say is it wasn't even really his scandal. So what happened was last week, the government deputy chief of the whip, a man called Chris Pinscher, got very drunk and behaved, shall we say, inappropriately and immediately tendered his resignation. Well, Chris Pinscher is, of course, perhaps not a household name, but he is a key ally of Boris Johnson. And he was a key member of his government until yesterday, of course, when he dramatically quit. Now, that was because he was accused of groping two men, as you say, at a private members club. And that was it. That was the scandal. What came to light over subsequent days was that this was a recurring theme with Chris Pinscher,

that it was an open secret in Westminster that he was very handsy, very lecherous, and had a tendency to get drunk and behave in this way. And that it had been an open secret when he had been appointed to that role of Deputy Chief Whip in February. The news desk can reveal claims male staff working in Downing Street were warned to stay away from Mr Pinscher because allegations about his behaviour. The warnings were so widespread across Parliament and government that senior Conservative figures joked at a party earlier this year that he was a scandal waiting to happen. In fact, there had been several official complaints.

And then to add to that, Boris Johnson claimed that he hadn't known about any of this when appointing Chris Pincher. Now, over a couple of days, that line changed from he wasn't aware of any allegations to he wasn't aware of any serious of any serious allegations last week the prime minister said that he knew nothing of specific allegations about misconduct by the member for tamworth then he claimed he had only been aware of reports and speculation but mr speaker the truth is out today and that defense has been completely blown apart. And then on Tuesday morning, we had a bombshell letter from a very senior civil servant who said that an incident had occurred while Boris Johnson was Foreign Secretary and that he had been briefed in person about this individual.

So the line that he didn't know was sort of well and truly proven to be false. And that's when the dominoes really started toppling. We just did a podcast a few weeks back about how Johnson very narrowly survived a non-confidence vote and came out of it severely weakened. And so remind us what scandal that was about. A number of them, but I think the big one that sort of led up to that no confidence vote has been the Partygate scandal. Now, I'm not entirely sure what the coronavirus pandemic lockdown rules were in Canada. But here in the UK, we had quite strict lockdown rules on social gatherings and what was and wasn't allowed. And what has come to light since really December is that while those in Downing Street were making these laws and were fining and prosecuting ordinary people for breaching them,

there were a number of social gatherings going on in Downing Street, in the buildings of government. Sue Gray says there was excessive alcohol consumption by some. One individual was sick and two had a fight or minor altercation. And on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral a year ago, there were two parties simultaneously in Number 10 and the last person checked out of the door had gone four. Boris Johnson said the report showed he might have been at some of these occasions

but they deteriorated once he'd left the room. I had no knowledge of those subsequent proceedings because I simply wasn't there. There were leaving parties, there were Christmas parties, there was a birthday party, there was a karaoke party, there was a party that involved a suitcase of wine. I have to say, it is my job to follow this and I have lost track of all the parties. I have to say, it is my job to follow this and I have lost track of all the parties. And there was a civil service report into them and into what happened. And then the Metropolitan Police got involved and various people got fined.

The Prime Minister himself received a fine and it dragged on for months. It has been on the front pages of our newspapers for months while other things have been going on like for example the war in Ukraine and the global cost of living inflation crisis um and I think throughout all of that the number of times the line came from Downing Street that there had been no parties and then ministers repeated that line and then there were photographs of those parties that happened again and again and again so uh all of that is kind of the last scandal in people's minds. And, you know, one thing I wanted to do today with you a little bit is just talk about some of these other scandals that he's faced and says, well, to be fair, a pretty landslide election in 2019. And I wonder if you could take me through some of the other big ones that you think helped precipitate this moment or, you know, laid some sort of groundwork for this moment.

Well, some of them aren't necessarily scandals so much as policies, I would say. So there were a lot of Conservative MPs who did not agree with the Brexit decision and certainly did not agree with Boris Johnson's pursuit of the kind of hard Brexit that he has done. Before the 2019 election, he prorogued Parliament, which means suspending Parliament. And it's quite complicated why he did that. But essentially, it was to try and minimise the opposition to his strategy on Brexit. That decision was proved unlawful. So there are a lot of Conservatives who think that he put our constitution and indeed the Queen in a very awkward position. And there's also been a lot of anger over the government breaking its commitments over the EU deal that it signed.

There's another row brewing over the withdrawal agreement. Yes, the one which has already been signed, sealed and delivered. It agreed that Northern Ireland would continue to follow some EU customs rules. That would mean extra paperwork, checks and tariffs for some goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Now the government's introducing its own law so that UK ministers can decide how to apply the rules without the EU's agreement. Even people who supported Brexit or support Brexit think that breaking international law and breaking the treaty that you helped write and agreed to within the space of a few years doesn't really make Britain look good.

The government is now changing the operation of that agreement. Given that, how can the government reassure future international partners that the UK can be trusted to abide by the legal obligations of the agreements it signs? Now, you might not call that a scandal, but it's certainly sort of front of mind of a lot of Conservative MPs who feel that he is a risk to the credibility of the Conservative Party and indeed the credibility of the country.

So you've got those kind of scandals, all those kind of very divisive, polarising political decisions. Then you've also got just some really weird ones, like he got somebody else to pay for the redecoration of his flat. More bad headlines as the Electoral Commission slapped a fine on the Tory party for the way the Prime Minister and others went about funding a lavish redecoration. During all this money shuffling to pay for the redecoration, caught here on camera,

the Conservative Party broke the law in not declaring a big donation from Lord Brownlow. And that, you know, that's not about Brexit or what your policy is on tax cuts or trade deals. That's essentially like, I'm sorry, but that's essentially corruption um and his attitude to that was I didn't know about it in anything anyway it was probably fine there have been lots of little stories like that there was one out uh very recently that he tried to get a very lucrative foreign office job for the woman who is now his wife at the time was his mistress um it one of the one of the genius things about Boris Johnson is there are so many of these scandals that it gets really, really difficult to keep track. But I think running through all of them is the sense that he acts as though the rules just do not apply to him.

And actually, it's very unfair for anyone to think that they should apply to him. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups.

How do the British people feel about him right now? How's he doing? How are they reacting? Well, I obviously speak for all of the British people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think one of the things that finally prompted MPs to move against him is the fact that he has been hemorrhaging popularity. Couldn't be more delighted to hear the news that he's resigning. Well, I'm overjoyed. He should never have been there in the first place. He's not got the integrity or the intelligence.

So, you know, I'm main-chuffed. I was quite happy that he got in as Prime Minister. I thought he would make a very good one. But obviously, the way all the lies has been told and that kind of thing, I think the best thing for him to do is to actually go now. Boris Johnson has not always been a classic Conservative. And the reason the Conserv conservatives have always stuck with him is because he has historically been very electorally popular when it started looking like he was no longer popular he was no longer going to help them win elections that's when support started to really ebb and there was a poll out this week that showed that 69 brilliant number there 69 of people thought that he should resign that was

on YouGov and then immediately after the no confidence vote that you mentioned and the government then went on to lose two by-elections really really badly I mean one of them meant they lost the majority of around 24,000 and those two by-elections were in very different parts of the country that have very different electoral demographics. So the fact that the Conservatives lost both of them really showed that there's a problem here. Will he be remembered for delivering any major wins for the Conservative Party? I mean, I guess he did deliver Brexit. I think your view on his legacy is very much going to be dependent on what your view of Brexit is. There are a large number of Conservatives and a not unsubstantial number of citizens in this country who would always think of him as the person who did get Brexit done, who did get the UK out of the EU, who took over a time of stalemate when that prospect looked very difficult.

Now, whether you think Brexit is going well or not at the moment, I think to those people kind of isn't the point. The point is, where will Britain be in 5, 10 or 50 years' time? And that is definitely a win for them. The other thing that his supporters always say about him is that they praise his handling of the UK's COVID response. Now, I'm not going to get into all of the arguments for or against that. The UK, shall we say, had a very mixed COVID response. But one thing we did do quite well was our vaccine rollout. And that is something that Boris Johnson has tried to turn into a personal triumph

for him and for his government. I'm not sure when we look back at history, how much evidence there is for that. And I would say his legacy probably will be two things. One, Brexit, you can take as a positive or a negative, as you like. And two to this very, very messy departure or attempted departure that we're currently seeing. Because in the last 48 hours, 72 hours, he has utterly shredded every democratic norm and really put quite a lot of strain on our unwritten constitution. Yeah. Why do you think he made the decision to resign? Because he did seem like very adamant as early as Wednesday that he wasn't going to do it.

I heard one commentator talk about how it was like his fingernails are in the windowsills of 10 Downing. So like, why do you think he caved, essentially? I was joking that he was going to handcuff himself to a chair i think it's important to just point out that he hasn't actually resigned as of yet uh he said he'll stay on until there's a new leader uh and the timeline for that is six weeks eight weeks 12 weeks um a huge amount can happen in that time. And there is a concern among some Conservative MPs that it's not his intention to go at all. It's his intention to use that time to try and regroup,

and maybe there'll be a crisis, maybe Russia will invade Poland, maybe the UK will get bombed, maybe Keir Starmer, the Labour leader here, will be fined for breaking Covid rules himself and things will change. Now, you might think that's delusional, but nothing about the tone of his speech on Thursday really suggested somebody who would come to terms with the end of their own political career. the end of their own political career. To answer your question, I guess, as to what it was that prompted him to give that speech, he was running out of ministers faster than he could replace them. Quite literally on Thursday morning,

there were no ministers in the Department for Education. I don't think there were any ministers in the Department for Housing. There were major offices of state that were unfilled and all the way down the chain, all the junior ministers who actually do the work of governing, people were resigning and he didn't have anyone to fill those positions. So yes, he was still clinging on to power and still saying that he was in charge, but he wasn't governing and he wasn't capable of governing. And I think possibly that finally got through to him or was made to get through to him by the fact

that everyone, his closest advisors, his closest allies, his closest cabinet ministers were all urging him to go. I mean, the man who he had appointed to be chancellor a day before then turned on him and said, you have to go. In the meantime, I guess, who is running the country in all this chaos, right? Like, are those ministers going to go back to their roles now? Like, what is happening to the country? It's a really good question. It's a good thing that we're not facing any sort of major national crises,

like really spiking inflation and the economy in real trouble or you know yeah in a war yeah yeah um constitutionally the answer is the prime minister is is running the country uh and and that hasn't changed um in terms of his cabinet a lot of people were assuming that once he had announced that he did intend to go, he would then rehire everyone who had resigned as a kind of interim caretaker government. He didn't do that. He has actually announced an entirely new cabinet. They met for the first time on Thursday afternoon, which was a quite bizarre decision. Obviously, there are junior ministers who are being rehired. But it's really not clear what mandate that new government has. There's a lot of confusion and chaos at the moment as to what this government can do.

Obviously, it can deal with the urgent stuff. It can deal with the day to day stuff. But in terms of putting forward new legislation or progressing legislation that was on its way, that is very much up in the air. Nobody really knows. And just one final question I have for you before we go. I couldn't help thinking today, like Johnson's rise came out of the fall of his predecessor, Theresa May, who resigned from office. David Cameron resigned from office.

These were all Tory leaders. I'm not saying they all resigned in the same circumstances. But I wonder what this says to you about the state of democracy in the UK? And, you know, maybe put another way, like, why can't someone finish a term in the in UK politics right now? It doesn't make us look great, does it? It's worth saying that David Cameron and Theresa May's resignations were quite different and under quite different circumstances. I think Boris Johnson is different because he does have a majority of nearly 80. and incompetent at the actual business of government that his own party turned on him, and they turned on him within just two and a half years, which I think, and we use this word a lot, I think pretty much is unprecedented. All I would say, in terms of can leaders finish a term,

is it's really not clear at the moment who is going to take over there aren't any obvious front runners if there had been obvious front runners that voted no confidence a few weeks ago would have gone very differently uh so whoever takes over we are almost certainly looking at more instability and quite possibly uh a new election so that's something to look forward to okay well i hope that you will come back on then. I'd love to. So much to talk about. Rachel, thank you so much for this. Thank you.

All right, so before we go today, an update on women's basketball superstar Brittany Griner, who's been held in Russian custody since February. Yesterday, Griner pled guilty to drug possession charges at her trial in Moscow. But she said she had no intention of committing a crime. Russia alleges that vape canisters with cannabis oil were found in her luggage at a Moscow airport. The WNBA star said she unintentionally brought the canisters after packing in a hurry. The U.S. has described Greiner as wrongfully detained and on Wednesday, President Joe Biden told Greiner's wife he's doing everything he can to get her released. Russia has authorized

Greiner's detention through late December, suggesting her trial could drag on for months. If Greiner is convicted of large-scale drug transportation, she could face up to 10 years in prison. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner, and we'll talk to you next week.