After months of resistance, Boris Johnson announced his resignation. And he automatically launched the process of preparing the election of a new leader of the conservatives – more than a dozen candidates have already put forward their candidacies.
By tradition, it is the most popular person among the current parliamentary majority who will head the future cabinet of ministers.
After Boris Johnson stepped down, he turned into a lame duck – a politician with no prospects who pulls the line with the prefix “acting”. British newspapers radiate sarcasm: we have two news: good – Boris Johnson is leaving, bad – who is coming to replace him.
ELECTION OF THE PRIME MINISTER
In fact, the applicants who declare their desire to compete for the highest party post are all weak candidates. A politician of the scale of Margaret Thatcher, not to mention Winston Churchill, is not on the horizon. It seems that in Britain in recent decades, a negative selection was systematically carried out by someone’s skillful hand.
As the newspaper Sovershenno Sekretno #9 (2022) previously told in the article “The main secret of the British Crown”, there is no such position as prime minister in the UK. This is, so to speak, an export option. Correctly, the post is called “chief adviser to the monarch.” Therefore, it looks a little touching when even venerable political scientists write about the elections in the UK. There are no elections for the prime minister (we will call him habitually) in the generally accepted sense, in any case, ordinary subjects of Her Majesty are not allowed to participate in them. The fact is that, according to British tradition, the head of the cabinet is appointed by Her (His) Majesty from among the most popular deputies of the lower house of parliament. Note that since a constitutional monarchy does not have a Constitution that clearly spells out everything, the term “traditions” is always used here. This sounds more weighty, although truly democratic countries prefer to adopt a Basic Law in a referendum with clearly defined rights and obligations, the procedure for appointing and expiration of the powers of the first persons. And not to live according to unwritten, and therefore no one really knows the rules. But Great Britain is a special country, at least, it considers itself as such. The generally accepted order does not apply to it. Suffice it to say that there are no direct elections here, in 2000 Her Majesty’s subjects were allowed to vote only for the mayors of cities, and even then not all, because they considered that the experiment had failed.
The people are allowed to vote for parties in the lower house of parliament, in recent years the Conservatives, who are again traditionally called Tories, have been gaining a majority, and they have not existed for a long time. The Labor Party is the second largest, it is also called not quite familiar to the ear of foreigners: Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.
If the premiership flows without serious excesses, then elections to the House of Commons are held every five years. However, if the prime minister resigns early, then the vote is held within the winning party. That is why the attention of almost the whole world is riveted to the seemingly purely internal intrigues of the conservative faction.
WHY JOHNSON HAS BEEN DISLOVED
Boris Johnson is arguably the most extravagant British prime minister. However, as a chief adviser, for some time he suited Her Majesty – for all his unusual appearance, rhetoric and behavior, Johnson, of course, always remained a systemic politician, sacredly observing the interests of the Crown, which for any Englishman is a symbol of the state.
Only once did he make a mistake – when, in the midst of a pandemic and severe restrictions, when the whole country was quietly quarantined, he took part in a party on Downing Street. This case was used by his political rivals to the fullest extent and, in the end, they achieved his resignation.
Johnson’s participation in the affairs of Ukraine, even for the allies, looked too artificial, in any case, did not require two visits to Kyiv. It was very likely that he was just running away from London for a while to relax, surrounded by people who truly love him. At home, he was not bestowed with such signs of attention.
At the same time, one must understand that the difference in policy towards Russia and Ukraine between Boris Johnson and any new prime minister is insignificant. This is a general British, and not at all his personal position. He fell into disgrace for completely different reasons.
First of all, because Johnson is a rebel. Not the same, of course, as Donald Trump, who encroached on the foundations of the state. But with all his appearance, the current acting. the prime minister demonstrated and demonstrates disagreement with the British tradition, whose politicians should be not only smart, but also prim, buttoned up with all the buttons of their uniform. It is very likely that the change of Her Majesty’s chief adviser, with whom Elizabeth II and Prince Charles met every Tuesday, was demanded by Buckingham Palace, fortunately, the Crown has more than enough influence on its parliament. Perhaps, during one of the audiences, he did not allow the queen to playfully ruffle her recalcitrant whirlwinds – who knows?
Finding a reason is a matter of technology. There was not enough discontent over Boris Johnson’s participation in a party in the midst of a pandemic – they waited for a new one: a government crisis erupted in Britain. The cabinet of ministers demanded to leave the post of head of the cabinet, but the prime minister categorically refused. After that, more than fifty civil servants, including more than ten ministers, left the Cabinet of Ministers in two days. They declared no confidence in Johnson and disagreed with his methods of leadership.
But the last straw was the scandal around the deputy chief organizer of the ruling Conservative Party, Chris Pincher, who harassed two men in a public institution while drunk on a bench. It was then that it turned out that it was Johnson who appointed Pincher to high positions, despite the fact that he knew about similar cases of harassment that had occurred earlier.
Johnson broke the record for the shortest tenure as British Prime Minister since 1900.
FAVORITES AND THEIR ATTITUDE TO RUSSIA
To date, the favorites of the election race are the Chancellor of the Exchequer (in our opinion, the head of the Ministry of Finance), an emigrant from India, Rishi Sunak, and the first woman in the chair of the British Minister of War, Penny Mordaunt. The head of the military department, Ben Wallace, had a chance, but withdrew his candidacy, and the well-known Foreign Minister Liz Truss, it seems, is unlikely to lead the party.
Purely intuitively, it seems that the new chief adviser to Her Majesty will be an Indian. If only because it is fresh and demonstrates today’s fashionable tolerance, as well as the rejection of the former colonial policy of Foggy Albion. On the other hand, Penny Mordaunt emphasizes in every possible way that she is Britain’s first defense minister – a woman. Thus, in the struggle for the premiership, two, so to speak, tolerances will converge.
At the same time, in the party Penny Mordaunt is more popular than Rishi Sunak, and according to public opinion polls, the Indian, on the contrary, is ahead of her. It is difficult to say whether such a rating will last until September 5, when elections are scheduled. Therefore, we do not insist on our forecast. In any case, with respect to Russia, neither under Prime Minister Sunak nor under Prime Minister Mordaunt, London’s policy will change. Helping Moscow lose in any conflict in every way is one of the pillars of British foreign policy, starting with the “Great Game” – the struggle for Central Asia in the 19th century, which was described by Rudyard Kipling.
In addition, the Prime Minister still does not determine the policy of Great Britain – this is the prerogative of Elizabeth II and Prince Charles. Her Majesty’s chief adviser is more like a technical, albeit very important, employee of Buckingham Palace, who is tasked for some time to defend the opinion of the Crown in her parliament.
It is for this honorary position that Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak will fight in the fall. And it doesn’t matter to you and me who gets it.