Opinion

Claire Simpson: When will Boris Johnson resign? Not until he's pushed

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Frank Augstein/PA Wire
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Frank Augstein/PA Wire British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Frank Augstein/PA Wire

IS he gone yet? For weeks, Boris Johnson has held on like a cockroach after a nuclear apocalypse.

Scuttling in the shadows, pausing only to make a half-hearted apology roadshow with stops in the House of Commons and a north London hospital, the Tory leader has seemed an even more shambolic figure than normal.

Breathing heavily through his mask - which he didn’t bother wearing during a visit to a different hospital in November - his performance on Sky News was described by one unnamed Tory MP as a "bad amateur dramatics performance”, surely an insult to anyone who does amateur dramatics.

A website has even been set up, www.hasborisresignedyet.com

So far, the answer is no.

At the time of writing, senior civil servant Sue Gray, an ex-pub landlady in Newry and formerly of our Stormont parish, is investigating at least 13 rule-breaking government parties during lockdown.

Although media reports suggest 16 parties allegedly took place in either Downing Street or other government departments during the pandemic.

Number 10 is reportedly worried that Ms Gray has already come across damning evidence and that her report, due to be published this week, will not clear him.

What more damning evidence is likely to emerge, given that Mr Johnson has already admitted to attending a garden party at Number 10 in May 2020?

His ridiculous initial claim that he thought the party was a “work event” came as a surprise to anyone who has actually had to attend a work event.

His later defence that "nobody told me" the party was "against the rules” is remarkable, given that during the pandemic his most important job has been to appear on television and tell the public what the rules actually are.

Is he really claiming to be an English version of Ron Burgundy, simply reading whatever was on the autocue?

Unfortunately it’s all too easy to imagine Mr Johnson telling people he’s “kind of a big deal” who owns many leather-bound books.

Still, it’s a truly extraordinary defence.

Saying ‘I broke the rules because I am stupid, not because I am a habitual rule-breaker’, is a bit like Neville Chamberlain saying he didn’t realise Poland was anywhere near Czechoslovakia.

Speaking of Chamberlain, former Brexit secretary David Davis, always the ghost at the feast, last week echoed Tory MP Leo Amery’s 1940 call for Chamberlain to resign.

Mr Davis’s call on Mr Johnson to “in the name of God, go” was first used by Oliver Cromwell in 1653 when forcibly ejecting the last members of the Long Parliament, and was later quoted by Mr Amery when pushing for Chamberlain to stand down.

While we haven’t quite reached the stage of Mr Davis being installed as Lord Protector of the realm, the omens do not look good.

Never one to underplay any situation, Mr Davis has contributed to the fall of several Tory prime ministers with the same kind of glee I reserve for eating chips on Ballycastle seafront.

The former Brexit secretary has previously admitted he resigned in July 2018 in the hopes that Theresa May would be ousted in favour of a hardline Brexiteer.

His feud with David Cameron, who he once challenged for the Tory leadership, remains legendary.

No surprise then that he once joked one of his favourite political hobbies was “bayoneting the wounded”.

Mr Johnson’s former closest aide, now professional thorn-in-his-side, Dominic Cummings, memorably described Mr Davis as “thick as mince, lazy as a toad, & vain as Narcissus”.

But Mr Davis’s intervention in the Commons last week was the clearest indicator so far that even the Conservatives have had enough of Mr Johnson.

It’s fine to mumble-wumble your way through political life when the party you lead has a clear majority.

But when seats are threatened, as they clearly are now, MPs tend not to look too kindly on you.

The longer this saga rolls on, including accusations that the Tory party is trying to “blackmail” its MPs to stop them from plotting against the prime minister, the worse it is for government and our democracy.

Mr Johnson has a history of not doing the decent thing so it’s fanciful to expect him to start now.

Everything points to him being forced out of office, rather than going quietly.

Still, at least Dominic Raab isn’t prime minister.