Boris Johnson was unaware at the time. But the most flamboyant, divisive, controversial Tory politician of recent decades finally ran out of political road in a quiet room in the House of Commons last Tuesday morning.
It was then, at 10am, that the seven MPs – four of them Conservatives – who have been conducting an inquiry into whether he misled parliament over Partygate, met in secret in committee room 20, and in effect sealed his fate. Chaired by Labour’s Harriet Harman, the privileges committee was unanimous in its decision across party lines.
After months of exhaustive inquiries and evidence sessions looking into whether the prime minister lied about Covid rule-breaking parties in No 10, they had concluded that the former prime minister had indeed misled the Commons about what had gone on.
Not inadvertently or casually – but either recklessly or deliberately and on more than one occasion.
For any MP, such a verdict from colleagues would be difficult enough to survive and face down. But for a former prime minister, and a man who had wanted since his childhood to be “world king”, it was of another order of magnitude altogether. Never before had an ex-occupant of No 10 Downing Street faced such humiliation and shame.
The committee resolved to recommend Johnson’s suspension from parliament for misleading it, for more than 10 days – a level of punishment at the higher end of expectations, and one severe enough to trigger a potential byelection in his marginal Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat.
Aware of the implications of their conclusion, the MPs were ready at last. They would despatch a draft copy of their findings to Johnson himself, and give him two weeks to respond. Because he was abroad – they had heard he was somewhere in Africa – the document was sent to the office of his lawyers who relayed it on to their client.
It would take Johnson just over three days to deliver his counter-verdict. At around 8pm on Friday and, somewhat eerily, just as news was also breaking of his friend Donald Trump’s indictment for hiding boxes of top secret documents at his Florida mansion, Johnson quit as an MP. In a statement he said he would stand down immediately, and leave parliament “for now at least”, 22 years after first taking a Tory seat.
His statement was laced with anger and Trump-like lack of contrition, blaming everyone but himself. He suggested Rishi Sunak’s government had failed on Brexit and was drifting away from true Tory values. The committee, he said, had shown “egregious bias”, and conducted a “witch hunt” against him, the purpose of which had always been “to drive me out of parliament”.
The UK media had been busy working on yet another blockbuster Johnson story – his extraordinary resignation honours list in which he brazenly dished out rewards to chums and cronies including several who had been up to their necks in “Partygate” – when the latest bombshell broke.
His ally Nadine Dorries, who had been taken off his honours list, had just stepped down as an MP, fuelling the sense of chaos.
Johnson was all defiance, portraying his inquisitors as the dishonest ones and himself as full of honour. “I did not lie and I believe that in their hearts the committee know it.”
Whether as mayor of London, a backbench MP, a minister or prime minister, Boris Johnson has always divided both country and party in a way few other politicians ever have. And never more so than at low points in his career, such as this.
Minutes after he quit, the Tory MP and Johnson cheerleader Andrea Jenkyns, who had just received a damehood in his honours list, launched into Rishi Sunak on a WhatsApp group, accusing her own leader and prime minister of being the source of all the turmoil. “Well done Rishi for starting this nonsense!!” she said.
The public seemed less sympathetic to Johnson, however, on hearing the news. The presenter of BBC Radio Four’s Any Questions, Alex Forsyth, revealed the decision on air, triggering roars and cheers before David T C Davies, secretary of state for Wales, suggested the audience was biased and declared himself a great admirer of the ex-PM. The Tory party was tearing itself apart in public.
The committee’s verdict had, in reality, left Johnson with little choice. Had he stayed he would almost certainly have had to endure, in person, a Commons vote in which a majority of MPs would have rubber stamped the committee’s recommendation. It would have taken his humiliation to new levels. Then the possibility of a recall petition and byelection defeat both loomed too large to contemplate.
Whatever his loud group of supporters may say, they are now small in number. One senior Tory MP who used to back Johnson said “perhaps a dozen” Conservative backbenchers still believe he has a future in politics, and even fewer think he could ever be Tory leader again.
The manner of his departure on Friday appalled many and has reduced his stature still further in the eyes of colleagues. A very senior Tory MP described the way he insulted the cross-party committee as “utterly disgraceful”.
“We really have had enough of this. It is beyond awful,” said another.
His honours list also caused deep dismay across much of the party, in government and in Whitehall. Senior Tories quickly pointed out that many of his awards were to people who had so obviously been in a position to help him in his desperate battles against the Partygate allegations. More than 40 of his closest aides, including his hairdresser, were given honours and peerages.
The Observer understands that on a recent version of the list, there was due to be a damehood handed to Johnson’s landlady, Carole Bamford. After leaving No 10, Johnson and his family stayed at a London home owned by Bamford. She is married to the billionaire Tory donor, Lord Bamford. A spokesman for Johnson said he could not comment on honours. Sources close to him suggested he did not remove the name.
Some who had stuck with Johnson, or supported him over Partygate, lost their patience. “It’s kicked off the party,” said a minister. “Lots of people are mystified by what they’re reading. Those who know Boris Johnson are less mystified. It’s always chaos.”
By morning, even his supporters were reluctant to take to the airwaves. There were supportive statements from the likes of former cabinet ministers Simon Clarke and Priti Patel. Both, however, conspicuously avoided repeating any of the attacks on Sunak that Jenkyns had thrown.
Even his closest allies avoided direct criticism of Sunak, as if conceding that there was no realistic prospect now of Johnson returning.
“On this day in 1983 Mrs Thatcher won a landslide majority,” said Conor Burns, one of the few MPs said to know Johnson well. “Today the only Conservative leader to do likewise leaves parliament. Boris stood up for the people against the Remain establishment and delivered Brexit. He was a significant PM. I fancy this isn’t the end. Good luck, boss.”
Amidst it all, and the obvious ebbing of support, there were still reminders on Saturdayof Johnson’s endless capacity to disrupt. Nigel Adams, one of his most loyal followers who had, like Dorries, also been denied a peerage, triggered a third unhelpful byelection by announcing he was standing down from his Selby constituency with immediate effect.
Whitehall sources said Adams had been expecting a knighthood as recently as earlier last week. Others said he had been involved in drawing up the honours list, but ended up being missed off himself. He did not respond to a request for comment.
The issue now for the party officials and MPs who want Johnson gone for good is over whether Tory high command – and ultimately Rishi Sunak - will take the step of barring the former prime minister from standing as a Tory party candidate ahead of the election, should he wish to do so.
“I am praying,” said a cabinet minister. A senior figure on the 1922 committee who used to support Johnson added: “The pantomime has to end. He has to be stopped by whatever means, and the sooner the better.” Former Tory minister Paul Goodman, who now edits ConservativeHome, said bluntly: “It is time for the Conservative party to move on.”
Even some of those who have worked closely with Johnson admitted he now had no chance of mounting a comeback. Talk of him standing in a byelection in Dorries’s seat of mid-Bedfordshire or another safer seat was increasingly being ridiculed as an idea as Saturdayyesterday wore on.
“It’s over,” said a former ally. “Obviously never say never, but he’s gone. He always wants to maintain he’s a prince over the water. But it’s much harder to be a prince over the water without a position in parliament. His supporters are leaving. He could only get 20-odd votes on opposing the Brexit deal. This is just a way of avoiding an exposure of the weakness of his position.”
A former Tory minister said that while Sunak ought to step in and bar him from the candidates’ list there was in reality not much of a threat and a risk of making him more of a martyr. “If you think it through, why would Boris want to bother now? If he fought mid-Beds he might well lose anyway. And two things can happen at the next election. In the very unlikely event that the Tories win, then Sunak is prime minister for a long time. And if we lose, Labour is in power. The last thing Boris would want then would be to be leader of the opposition trying to chart the long road back to power.”
For some time he has been losing public support, and MPs sense that. Opinium pollsters recently asked people whether they thought he should resign if the privileges committee ruled against him. Some 69% said they thought he should. In addition, some 64% thought he had been lying in his testimony. That is hardly a springboard from which to launch a return.
On Monday, the privileges committee will meet again to decide its next steps, and when to publish its full report into Johnson and Partygate. Publication is likely to be in the middle of this coming week. Then there will be a vote for the whole of the House of Commons on whether to back the recommendation that he be suspended. Another senior Tory and ex-supporter of Johnson said: “We have a process to go through. He has a choice to make. In the end it is the whole of the Commons that must vote. He can’t continue to peddle this stuff about a witch hunt. Boris has a choice to make. He can go on denouncing the parliamentary process or he can go quietly. Although it would obviously be in his and everyone’s interest, it is difficult to see him doing the latter.”
