There is a saying among ministers that the safest place to be in a crisis is the box office. Behind you, you are in control of the situation. You can respond to any development on your own terms.
But for Boris Johnson there was little to comfort him when on Wednesday he faced MPs in the House of Commons. When Conservative MP Tim Loughton asked him if there was anything to persuade him to resign, he replied that it was the job of a prime minister who had won a “colossal” term to move on even though times were tough.
Johnson’s problem is that a dwindling number of his deputies agree. After losing two senior cabinet ministers, in the form of his chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and health secretary Sajid Javid, his government is in free fall.
Downing Street aides have tried to bolster the prime minister by moving quickly to replace cabinet vacancies, but that has not stopped others from continuing the same. In the rest of the government, there are now about twenty unfilled places.
Meanwhile, Conservative MPs are conspiring to find a way to force him to step down before the summer break in two weeks. Given the failed bid to oust him last month, Johnson is technically certain of another censorship vote until June next year. To try to fix it, members of the 1922 executive will meet to discuss a rule change: Johnson may end up facing another censure vote next week.
While No. 10 aides say they are optimistic about their prospects, the numbers don’t look good. “The mood has changed,” one member of the 2019 intake tells me. “Every day that stays is bad for the party.”
This has been coming for a long time. Johnson never bothered to put his party on the sidelines: after winning an 80-strong majority in the 2019 general election, many on his team decided there was no need to do so. Now she is chasing him again.
“There is no way back for him,” adds a former minister. “We always knew we were dealing with the devil, but we didn’t expect him to be incompetent either.” Johnson’s recent comments on his overseas tour, in which he suggested he would not change and spoke of his hopes for a third term, served to turn deputies who were sitting on the fence against him.
Even if he manages to avoid a vote in the coming weeks, then he will face the prospect of trying to govern when so many in the party are openly against him. Prior to the Pincher scandal, which accelerated moves against the prime minister, No. 10 collaborators spoke of the party’s conference in October as an opportunity for Johnson to reassert control. This now seems ambitious.
Even those cabinet ministers who have decided to stay with the prime minister have doubts. Michael Gove has kept a remarkably low public profile, having called for the prime minister on Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, signs of loyalty may have more to do with them than it seems.
There is an argument that for potential aspirants to leadership, such as Liz Truss or Nadhim Zahawi, it could be advantageous for them to remain in the cabinet and then win Johnson’s loyal vote in any contest. Zahawi, now chancellor, is increasingly being talked about as a serious candidate for leadership.
But anyone who thinks Johnson’s end would mean a more harmonious period for the Conservative party is probably wrong. If he leaves, the leadership competition that follows will be vicious and the task that the winner will face in trying to lead the parliamentary party will be daunting.
“It will be horrible,” says a former minister. “I think it’s best to stay completely out of it and then see where things are.”
After all, Johnson still has loyal supporters and does not accept the idea of MPs changing the rules to remove a prime minister who won the largest majority since Margaret Thatcher. One such figure warns that any rewriting of the 1922 rules would release forces that MPs would regret.
Expect Johnson’s Praetorian Guard, made up of figures such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries, to work against any possible candidate who is considered insufficiently loyal to the prime minister. Among the old guard is a particular poison for Rishi Sunak, whom they consider insufficiently loyal or supportive even before he left the post of chancellor. “They would also still have Boris on the sidelines like a thorn in the side, either in the Commons or through a column,” adds a senior Conservative.
For now, Downing Street will not even participate in these scenarios. The message from the Prime Minister and his top team is that he will continue to fight and MPs will overcome this tantrum in time. Conservatives fear he will do anything to stay in power, such as calling early elections, although that would face massive opposition from the party.
What is clear is that with each passing hour, control of the prime minister’s power is looser and weaker.