With everything that is going on at the moment, it is easy to think that Johnson is finished. However, if you get caught up in your own echo chamber, it is easy to imagine that everyone is feeling the same. The reality is, it doesn’t matter what I, or anyone else who despises Johnson, thinks. Parties or no parties, I learnt to dislike Johnson years ago and have never voted for him. The key to his downfall is whether tepid Johnson supporters are sick to death of all the lies and deceit.

Fervent Johnson cultists aren’t going to drop him. You can see that on social media. There is an acceptance that lying and not adhering to rules, does not need to apply to Johnson. According to them, we all had parties and broke the law, and no one cares about cakes or garden booze ups. I can’t understand that kind of acceptance and can only put it down to gaslighting. Crude denialism and whataboutism is all the rage, it seems.

Replicating Trump

As I see it, this is no longer about conservatism. Johnson is not really a conservative, more a populist. He is almost a replica of Trump when he hijacked the Republican Party. The traditional conservatives don’t know what to do with themselves. Meanwhile, core support is coming from the impulsive disaffected that think Johnson is fighting their corner. The conservative party as a whole is to blame. They have allowed far-right populism to grow within, rather than stamping it out early. Johnson is not an overnight underdog like Trump, he has been 20 years in the making.

For that, we can’t blame Johnson. Johnson is an opportunist, and that opportunity was handed to him on a silver platter by David Cameron. To convert a coalition into an outright majority, Cameron fell into a trap set by the swivel eyed loons on the back benches. If he wanted their support, he would have to agree to a referendum. Johnson took the open goal in front of him, embracing chaos and division in exchange for power.

Calamitous Results

The result has been calamitous. We are sat here, in some sort of parallel universe where Johnson sees the escalating crisis in Russia as an ideal dead cat. It is the worst crisis in Europe since the Balkans war. Yet, for Johnson, it is well handy. What makes it worse, is that we are in a tense period with impulsive liars leading the country. Reactionary and populist words are dangerous, and we are in a dangerous period.

Even the most experienced political strategists don’t know what Putin is thinking. He is the master of non-linear warfare and double bluffing, so who knows what will happen? However, he must look west and see Europe weakened by the UK’s departure. Then further west at an isolated UK, engulfed in sleaze and corruption that would make even him blush. If Russia were involved in hacking and influencing the 2016 referendum, Putin will be delighted by the work his people carried out.

That’s why I think that a government that breaks its own laws and lies to its people is wrong. If they lie about cake and garden parties what other lies have been told? How many laws have been broken and how many public sector contracts have been handed out illegally? Why is £4.5 billion of fraud being written off?

The Result

Johnson won’t go lightly, or gracefully. He has surrounded himself with untalented and inept cabinet members who know they are out of office if he goes. It is a clever manoeuvre, and something learnt from Prime Ministers past. Thatcher, for instance, was surrounded by political heavyweights who could lead without her. By having a powerful cabinet, she inadvertently weakened herself. Johnson has a pathetically weak and inexperienced cabinet, with no viable and electable MP in it. That’s no coincidence.

Ultimately, the only long-term solution for the conservative party may be the mobilisation of sane conservatives, followed by an internal coup. In the short term, it may mean them giving up power to a centrist coalition movement. Populist movements never end well. They either result in economic chaos with super high inflation, or wars with near neighbours or even within.

We can’t carry on with ‘down the pub’ politics driven on by nationalism, whataboutism, denialism and the type of gaslighting dished out by Truss, Patel, Rees Mogg and Shapps.

We deserve better.