When Conservative MPs recently had the opportunity to evict a profoundly unpopular and deeply discredited prime minister who broke the law and then lied about it to parliament, they flunked the test. The 148 who did the right thing were outnumbered by the 211 placeholders, cronies and cynics who chose to keep him at No 10. In the fortnight since, we have been provided with an accumulation of further evidence that they were morally myopic and politically foolish to allow Boris Johnson to carry on squatting in the office he has so debased.
His lack of basic integrity has been underlined by the resignation of Christopher Geidt as his adviser on ministerial interests. Geidt is the second holder of the post to realise that trying to get this prime minister to follow rules on ethical behaviour is an impossibly oxymoronic challenge. It is a sign of how far expectations of decent conduct have collapsed during the Johnson regime that few are surprised to learn that he is considering dispensing with having an ethics invigilator at all. A prime minister who casually flouted his own Covid laws has also shown himself ready to consciously break international law by announcing legislation to unilaterally recast the Northern Ireland protocol. This defies the wishes of the majority of Northern Ireland’s elected representatives and seeks to undo the Brexit agreement that he negotiated and sold to the British people as “an oven-ready deal” at the 2019 election. Amid the gravest armed conflict on our continent since 1945 and the most severe squeeze on living standards in decades, a trade war with the European Union is the last thing this country needs. It will fuel inflation and make it even likelier that the UK slides into recession. And yet, with all too characteristic recklessness, this government is risking just that.
