Under the guise of cold street parties or next to children’s bouncy castles at the village’s jubilee festivities, Conservative MPs have been quietly taking the mood of their constituents before returning for a blood week in Westminster.
“I’m making people come to me and greet me with that smile and nod that is usually reserved when your labrador puppy has just been run over,” one MP said. “It’s deeply uncomfortable.”
While few have directly confronted angry voters demanding the removal of the prime minister, most admit there is discomfort at the meetings.
“I don’t think anyone wants to spoil the weekend, but some members of my association have asked me if I have considered sending a letter,” one MP said. “This is new territory, it is very serious. It’s like denouncing the family. “
Several said the criticism came with more sadness than anger: one recalled a pair of Conservative voters telling them they had 130 years of party membership between them. “They said they can’t vote for us again with self-esteem while Boris Johnson is in the lead.”
Even at the time of the national celebration, Johnson’s situation has unfortunately been introduced. The Prime Minister was booed up the stairs at St Paul’s – a moment described as “embarrassing” and “humiliating” by his colleagues – and was the butt of comedian Lee Mack’s jokes that opened the retirement concert.
Some of these supporters of Johnson say that the jokes of Mack or Stephen Fry can help the Prime Minister: “It shows that his critics are the class of lovers,” said one. But boos are much harder to ignore.
“They are fervent royalists who will have arrived at four in the morning, not vegetarian readers of the Guardian,” one MP said. “These are the friends of the community hospital, your counselors, the backbone of Britain.
“A Conservative prime minister would normally expect to get some sort of rebound from a jubilee weekend. But I think it strangely reminded us of the Prime Minister’s shortcomings.
“We’ve been talking about duty. We’ve been talking about service. We’ve been talking about subjecting the person or self to the greatest good. All of these things are anathema to the prime minister.”
But even among Johnson’s staunchest critics, they admit that there is no consensus on his replacement, and that his voters have very little enthusiasm for an alternative.
The overwhelming feeling that the deputies denounce is a general feeling of boredom and frustration on the part of the public. “We have banned political conversation all weekend,” one MP said.
Many said the emails they had received about Partygate were sold out, though many said it was because they believed the public had decided what they thought of Johnson long before Sue Gray’s report.
“The public is really fed up: many blame the prime minister, some blame all politicians, others blame the media obsession,” said one. “I received 30 emails from the Gray report, far less than normal. Most of them sent an email for the first time in January, but now they have stopped sending them. Definitely real confidence in politics and in politicians it is very low. “
Some of the “red wall” conservatives who are deeply loyal to Johnson feel especially hurt by the plot to oust him, and warn that it will lead to more party divisions.
“There is an assumption among some colleagues that if the first prime minister who wins the election in a generation comes out, MPs like me will absorb it and unite behind a new leader. They are wrong,” he said. say the 2019 admissions deputy.
A veteran MP said he was very concerned that the party would end up looking increasingly divided under a new leader, due to the uncertainty of a career.
If he arrives, he is likely to include candidates from all sides of the party, such as Jeremy Hunt, Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid, Liz Truss, Penny Mordaunt, Tom Tugendhat, and even outsiders like Tobias Ellwood or Mark Harper.
All of these candidates would alienate certain conservative factions, not to mention voters, the MP said. “The risk is that you will defeat the prime minister and then end up with a leader you don’t like, which is perfectly possible,” he said.
“Actually, it’s very likely, because there’s no obvious successor, then you’ll have a very close campaign with a variety of different candidates.”
Most lawmakers, who are reflecting on the prospect of a horror-divided parliamentary party, have spent the weekend trying to turn conversations into local projects or emphasizing their own credentials as decent public servants.
“All we can do is the best of us, try to set an example and stand up for integrity,” a former minister said. “Of course Theresa May did that, and in the end it wasn’t enough, but it’s the only way most of us can live with ourselves.”