On Wednesday, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson lost three major votes in Parliament, each by a larger margin than the one before. Then his own brother declared that he couldn’t take any more and left Johnson’s government. On Thursday, Johnson is meeting with Mike Pence. So a bad week all around.
The headlines and tweets over Jo Johnson’s decision to abandon his post as business minister and a member of Parliament have been genuinely hilarious. Though … probably not for Boris. His own brother’s departure from Johnson’s bench illustrates again that, despite the expulsion of 21 “rebels” who voted to block a no-deal Brexit, the Tory leader has no control over Parliament and apparently little power over his own party.
The biggest loss for Johnson came in his inability to secure a snap election. Even with the unpopularity of the no-deal position, Johnson is counting on the disunity of the opposition to land him a fresh majority in the Commons if he can pull off a vote in the weeks between now and Halloween. But getting that election requires agreement from two-thirds of MPs, and on Wednesday Johnson didn’t come close to even a plain majority. That leaves Johnson and his raggedy coalition, including the Brexit Party, in charge of a minority government in which he can do little but rant to decreasing effect.
There is still the possibility that such an election may happen. Some members of the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats are feeling better about their ability to pull off a majority even if they can’t take the seats of the Conservative rebels and even if Jeremy Corbyn still gets first dibs on forming a new government. That feeling was boosted when over 200,000 new voters, most of them under 35, registered to vote in a 24-hour period. The opposition still seems to be united behind the idea that it will not agree to any vote until the bill blocking a no-deal Brexit has become law, but its speedy passage through the House of Lords could be complete by Friday.
On Monday, Johnson is expected to make another stab at forcing an immediate general election. It seems very unlikely that it will be any more successful than the last effort, no matter how many times Johnson and pal Nigel Farage sling insults.
Brother Jo Johnson is not the first member of Boris’ clan to part ways with him over his Brexit obsession. His younger sister Rachel publicly left the Conservative Party in 2017 over the Brexit vote and declared herself a “remainder.” Johnson also has another brother who backs remaining and supports holding a second referendum. In other words, the people closest to Boris Johnson don’t buy what he is selling.
As for that visit with Mike Pence, Trump’s 2016 running mate and placeholder for 2020 emerged from the meeting to say that the United States is ready to sign on to a new trade agreement with the United Kingdom “as soon as Brexit is complete.” The prospect of creating stronger ties to the government of Donald Trump may be the one message that the opposition needs to completely clear the benches on the Conservative side.
Meanwhile, the European Union is sending signals that it would be open to an extension. Which is the last thing that Johnson wants. That could lead to a resumption of talks based on the agreement earlier worked out by former Prime Minister Theresa May, or even provide the time necessary to mount a genuine challenge to Brexit. But before that happens, Johnson is likely to get his election, one way or another.
At the moment, Johnson is presiding over chaos. His party is split. His opposition is united around nothing so much as making him eat sand in the form of agreeing to support the no-deal block. He’s not even really presiding at all. He’s just there to be poked by whoever has a sharp stick handy.
Whether the Conservative Party is now a spent force, done in by a Trump-like figure who carried the party away from its own long-expressed principles, remains to be seen. If Johnson can win back majority support, he’ll have much more power at the head of a radically different party. But with Johnson driving a wedge through the Conservatives, and Corbyn delivering long-term weakness for Labour, this could be the most interesting, and consequential, U.K. election since there have been U.K. elections. The potential for a complete upending of the current structure seems high.