10th June 2023
Partygate – the beginning of the end for Johnson
The resignation of disgraced former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, from Parliament last night is the latest twist in a career characterised by conniving, deceit and mendacity. Having received the report of the House of Commons Privileges Committee into whether he misled Parliament, Johnson had two weeks to respond. Clearly Johnson realised that the report’s findings were sufficiently damning for him to jump before he was pushed and made up his own mind within twenty four hours.
In typically bombastic fashion Johnson has not admitted responsibility for his deceit, characterising the committee as a kangaroo court, vilifying its Chair, Harriet Harman MP, and claiming that he is innocent of all charges laid against him. A classic tactic of getting his retaliation in first.
Johnson’s resignation coincides with his Honour’s List nominations having been agreed, a British ruling class convention which allows former Prime Ministers to reward their cronies for services rendered. Gung ho former Home Secretary, Priti Patel is made a Dame, while diehard Johnson loyalist Jacob Rees-Mogg is conferred a knighthood. Other gongs go to a range of fans and supporters though lickspittle in chief, Nadine Dorries, misses out. She too has settled for resigning as an MP, giving beleaguered Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, the headache of two by-elections to fight.
Johnson is of course not at all the innocent victim he makes himself out to be. He presided over the highest loss of life of any Western European country during the Covid 19 pandemic, with the death toll still rising and heading towards quarter of a million. Contracts to cronies and Tory party donors for poor quality or non existent PPE, the debacle of the £37 billion track and trace system and his final departure from No.10, following the Partygate scandal, all add up to a pattern of behaviour which is at best narcissistic, at worst plain criminal.
Somewhere down the line there may be an historical reckoning if the Covid Inquiry can get itself out of the starting blocks but Johnson will be way beyond caring by that point. Having already trousered millions on the after dinner speech circuit since leaving Downing Street, he can no doubt look forward to a slew of lucrative invitations from the redneck tendency across the globe, to give his own distorted view on the reasons for his demise and the current state of the world.
For the ruling class Johnson was always a disposable commodity. His main purpose was to shift the emphasis of political debate away from actual policy and onto personality. Aided by a compliant media keen to play up his so called ‘boosterism’, offset against the character assassination of the less media friendly and, for the ruling class, politically dubious, Jeremy Corbyn, it was always going to be an unlikely scenario that Labour would escape disaster at the 2019 General Election.
While the Tories have continued to tear themselves apart over how far to the right they want the country to be dragged, the ruling class have been stealthily making Labour safe again for capitalism. The unacceptable face of Jeremy Corbyn has been replaced by Kier Starmer. The front bench has been hollowed out of any dissenting voices. Corbyn has been excluded from standing for parliament on a Labour platform and even sitting North of Tyne Combined Authority Mayor, Jamie Driscoll, a relatively minor figure in the scheme of things, has been excluded from standing as a candidate to run for the top job in the forthcoming North East Mayoral Combined Authority.
Johnson’s resignation announcement was news enough to bump former US President, Donald Trump, from the BBC headlines. Having been indicted on 37 counts, including endangering national security for keeping classified White House documents in his bathroom, Trump was making all of the headlines till Johnson stepped in.
It is an irony that the two most narcissistic and politically belligerent representatives of their respective ruling elites should be in the headlines for their political misdemeanours at the same time. While Johnson has left the door open for a political return, saying that he is sad to be leaving Parliament “for now”, Trump remains the front runner in the Republican nomination to be the next Presidential candidate.
That the prospect of another Trump presidency is a further threat to world peace and the lives of working class Americans would be an understatement, though his rivals for the Republican nomination appear to be equally blinkered and the world can hardly be said to have been a safer place for many in the hands of Joe Biden. However, the erratic nature of Trump’s approach increases uncertainties and the social media driven approach to international diplomacy, which characterised his term in office, does not inspire confidence.
It is bad enough that US imperialism is doing its utmost to tear the world apart. It would be an even greater disaster should that happen due to a moment of personal rage or a fit of pique on the part of an individual who, by any reasonable count, should not be in any position of political responsibility. The charges against Trump carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison. It may be unlikely that things get to that stage but it would be a result.
Back in Britain Johnson will no doubt continue to garner the headlines, the by-elections triggered by his and Nadine Dorries’ resignations will begin to move centre stage and Rishi Sunak will continue to look increasingly exasperated with very public appearance. A General Election will finally put the Tories out of their misery and, with a safe Labour administration in No.10, they will be able to use their time in Opposition to regroup.
The challenge for the Left in Britain is to rebuild an alternative to both Starmer’s version of Labour and whatever emerges from the Tory bonfire of vanities, in order to demonstrate that capitalism is a system that serves the interests of the ruling class and that socialism is the only way forward for a future of peace, social justice and democracy.
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