Friday, Jul 8, 2022 • 31min
The Final Days of Boris Johnson
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After a flurry of ministerial resignations and calls from members of his own party for his departure, Boris Johnson agreed on Thursday to resign as prime minister of Britain.
During his tenure, Mr. Johnson survived a series of scandals and skated past a lot of bad news. But even he was unable to maneuver his way out of his latest misstep.
Guest: Mark Landler, the London bureau chief for The New York Times.
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Verified
Break
Michael Barbaro
00:35
I'm
Michael Barbaro
. This is The Daily. Today throughout his tenure, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
became famous for his ability to escape a political crisis.Share
00:54
I spoke with my colleague London Bureau Chief
Mark Landler
about why this time he couldn't survive. It's Friday july 8th.Share
01:17
So,
Mark
, I think we should disclose to our listeners that you are such a wonderful colleague that you are talking to us very late at night despite the fact that you have a cough and a sore throat.Share
Mark Landler
01:29
That's true. So, I hope I'm not too much of a burden for your for your listeners early in the morning. I'll do my best not to cough.
Share
Michael Barbaro
01:37
Okay, well, we can also edit it; out secret audio tricks.
Share
01:41
Fair enough.
Share
01:42
So,
Mark
, it has finally happened. Boris Johnson
will be Prime Minister no more. It's something we have anticipated, wondered about. And now it's real. So just explain the enormity of this moment.Share
Mark Landler
01:56
Well, you have to understand that for people living in
Britain
, Boris Johnson
has been a colossus on the landscape, really, not just for the three years, he was prime minister, but for the decade or so. Before then, when he was mayor of London
, when he was foreign secretary, when he was the primary campaigner for Brexit
in the 2016 referendum.Share
Michael Barbaro
02:21
So this, this is a guy who has really preoccupied
Britain's
for years, he's been the most colorful, the most flamboyant, the most impactful politician on the scene by a long shot. And so the idea that he is suddenly no longer the prime minister is really an epochal event in British politics.Share
02:44
Epochal. So I want to get to the very particular set of circumstances that ultimately toppled him. But it feels like it was very much an accumulation that began many months back. In fact, marked the last time that we talked to you it was about one of the scandals facing
Boris Johnson
party game, he had been caught holding and attending garden parties at his official residence that violated COVID
rules in Britain
, but it appeared that he had survived that scandal. So bring us from that moment to this moment where he no longer survives at all.Share
Mark Landler
03:22
Well, as you say Michael,
Partygate
was this drip drip drip of embarrassing revelations For the government that went on for several months, starting in November of last year.Share
03:34
N. 10 staff joking about a Christmas party sparking an internal then police investigation into 12 gatherings in total.
Share
03:42
12 parties, 20 fines.
Share
Mark Landler
03:44
Boris Johnson
was fined for criminal violation of lockdown rules by the police.Share
Boris Johnson
03:49
Let me say immediately that I have paid the fine and I once again offer a full apology.
Share
Mark Landler
03:56
The first time a British prime minister had ever suffered that kind of punishment. And yet, as you say, he gets through that only to have several more bad things happen in relatively quick succession.
Share
Michael Barbaro
04:08
Which are what?
Share
Mark Landler
04:09
The Tory Party
does very badly in local elections. These are elections for council member positions, you know, literally the folks that pick up your garbage, so they're not high profile, but they're a very good barometer for what the public makes of the party and its leader, the conservatives get very bad result there. And it begins to germinate with many conservatives, that this politician who had been very successful in winning elections might be losing his touch.Share
04:40
Remember
Boris Johnson
not only won the 2016 referendum on Brexit
, he also won a landslide general election victory in 2019. And so he had kind of developed a reputation as a champion vote getter, as one of these electoral powerhouses that just knew how to appeal to a broader set of voters than virtually any major politician on the landscape.Share
05:05
But for the first time, after these local elections, it began to dawn on conservatives, "Gee maybe that's no longer the case". Maybe rather than being our ace in the hole
Boris Johnson
is actually a liability at the polls And that of course, causes a lot of unease in a party that has depended on Johnson
for its success.Share
Michael Barbaro
05:27
Got it. so what happens next?
Share
Mark Landler
05:30
You know, so then we get to June and this unease has been kind of developing, building up, bubbling up in the party for weeks and it manifests itself in this very unusual process, where
Conservative
members of Parliament
are allowed to submit letters to a committee demanding a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister. And letters have been dribbling in one or two at a time over a period of weeks.Share
05:57
But after the local elections, there's a sudden spike and a threshold is reached where suddenly
Boris Johnson
, who may have thought he had skated past. A lot of bad news, finds himself in this very perilous moment where the party is now going to get to vote in secret, which is important on whether or not they still have confidence in him.Share
06:21
And 48 hours later, they hold that vote.
Share
06:23
The vote in favor of having confidence in
Boris Johnson's
leader was 211 votes and the vote against 148 votes.Share
Mark Landler
06:32
And 148 members of
the
Conservative Party
in Parliament
vote against the prime minister.Share
Michael Barbaro
06:40
It's a lot of people!
Share
Mark Landler
06:41
It's a lot of people, it's not enough to force him out of office.
Share
06:44
And therefore, I can announce that the parliamentary party does have confidence.
Share
Mark Landler
06:49
But it was nevertheless, a very large number represented 40% of the
Conservative
members of Parliament
. So it was a very sobering moment that exposed just how weak Boris Johnson's
position was.Share
Michael Barbaro
07:04
Right. This is a wounded prime minister.
Share
Mark Landler
07:07
That's right. And that point was driven home only a few weeks later, when there were a pair of off-year elections that are held to fill vacant seats, both of which in this case were held by conservatives and the conservatives lost both of them.
Share
07:23
So, a party that was already alarmed was now in full panic mode, and those fears really snowballed. A few weeks later with the sudden emergence of yet another scandal involving a senior
Conservative Party
official who had been steadily promoted and advanced by Boris Johnson
.Share
07:47
Well,
Chris Pincher
is, of course, perhaps not a household name, but he is a key ally of Boris Johnson
.Share
Mark Landler
07:54
This is a man named
Chris Pincher
and he is the Deputy Chief whip of the Conservative Party
, which is a very politically important job, which Boris Johnson
gave to Chris Pincher
.Share
08:08
He was responsible for Tory Party discipline, but it is now his behavior under investigation.
Share
Mark Landler
08:14
So on June 29,
Pincher
attends a party at a club in Piccadilly and he at that club drinks successively.Share
08:24
On Thursday allegations emerged, he grouped two men the night before.
Share
Mark Landler
08:29
And is accused of drunkenly groping two young men who are
Conservative Party
staffers. His behavior is reported to his colleagues who refer it up to the Chief whip, who looks into it and Pincher
offers his resignation.Share
08:44
In his resignation letter, he said last night, I drank far too much, I've embarrassed myself and other people, which is the last thing I want to do.
Share
Mark Landler
08:54
The Prime Minister says, we're not going to suspend him from the party and the matter is closed. But as the story develops,
Boris Johnson
has asked whether he was aware of allegations against Pincher
at the time that he promoted him because Pincher
has a record of this kind of behavior.Share
09:16
In 2017, he was cleared by
the Tory Party
after a claim he had made unwanted advances towards a man.Share
Mark Landler
09:23
And
Downing Street
initially says Johnson
had no awareness of any allegations and then corrected itself soon after to say -Share
09:31
My understanding that the premise has not been aware of specific allegations against
Chris Pincher
.Share
Mark Landler
09:36
Well, he wasn't aware of any specific allegations.
Share
09:40
What's going on, Number 10, I'm a head spinning. I have no idea where we are.
Share
Mark Landler
09:44
Couple more days go by and British newspapers report at least four more allegations against
Pincher
and Downing Street
is forced to acknowledge that -Share
09:56
Last week when fresh allegations arose, the Prime Minister did not immediately recall the conversation in late 2019.
Share
Mark Landler
10:06
Johnson
had been personally aware of allegations made against him at the time that he promoted him.Share
10:13
Well, as soon as he was reminded, the number 10 Press office corrected their public line.
Share
Mark Landler
10:21
This all blows up even further when a former senior civil servant in
the Foreign Office
submits a letter to Downing Street
, in which he essentially accuses the Prime Minister of lying.Share
10:34
The former Permanent Secretary,
the Foreign Office
has said this morning that Downing Street
is not telling the truth.Share
Mark Landler
10:42
And says there was a specific complaint made against
Pincher
years earlier when Boris Johnson
was Foreign Secretary and Pincher
was working in the Foreign Office.Share
10:53
I mean, have you ever seen anything like this before?
Share
Mark Landler
10:55
And then
Downing Street
is forced to acknowledge that, "Yes, this long history was well known and you know", as if to add insult to injury a story comes out that Johnson
used to joke about this man around the office.Share
11:12
With allegations he referred to
Chris Pincher
as Pincher
by name, Pincher by nature.Share
Mark Landler
11:18
So you've got this picture of a Prime Minister who has dissembled about his role in this man's advancement and has even made light of his predatory behavior. So all the ingredients are there for a really explosive situation.
Share
Michael Barbaro
11:37
Yeah, right. And just to be clear, this scandal here is in the case of
Pincher
that he was engaging in various forms of sexual misconduct and harassment for a very long time.Share
11:52
But the scandal for
Johnson
is that he knew about it and promoted Pincher
anyway to a job where Pincher
then allegedly goes on to be a predator all over again. So he's basically protected somebody accused of being a serial sexual assaulter.Share
Mark Landler
12:09
That's right. And made light of it, rather than responding to it as you would expect any serious person to. And to add one more point to this, not only did the spokespeople at
Downing Street
put out these erroneous stories, but members of the cabinet
went out and gave interviews on television where they repeated this inaccurate information.Share
12:31
So not only did
Johnson
lie about it, he had proxies lie on his behalf, and that became extremely inflammatory with members of his cabinet
and members of his party in Parliament
who suddenly saw their own integrity, their own reputations being tarnished by association with Boris Johnson
and for many members of the party, this was the scandal too far.Share
12:58
Minister, do you accept it was a grave error to appoint
Chris Pincher
to your government?Share
Boris Johnson
13:02
Yes, I think it was a mistake. And I apologize for.
Share
Mark Landler
13:06
It's worth noting that
Boris Johnson
came out and apologized for having hired Chris Pincher
and advanced him.Share
Boris Johnson
13:13
That there's no place in this government, for anybody who is predatory or who abuses their position of power.
Share
Mark Landler
13:22
But to many people, it felt like just one more apology for shameful behavior. It rang a bit hollow. And for some members of the
Conservative Party
, it's deep in the sense of dread that they had about the costs of their association with Boris Johnson
going forward.Share
13:43
And yet for all that there was also a sense in the British press that
Johnson
would probably weasel his way out of this one, just as he had out of so many scandals in the past and so for all the outrage and for all the revulsion at what had happened, Boris Johnson
was still the Prime Minister and there was no sign on the horizon that he was about to give up that job.Share
Michael Barbaro
14:20
We'll be right back.
Share
Break
Michael Barbaro
15:52
So
Mark
, when does the damn start to break?Share
Mark Landler
15:55
Well, it was Tuesday night shortly after 6 PM, when two very senior
cabinet
ministers suddenly issued back-to-back letters resigning from the government and saying that they can no longer serve the Prime Minister.Share
16:10
Double resignations. A double bombshell for
Boris Johnson
and his future, as the Prime Minister.Share
16:17
Robert. Any of this surprise you this evening?
Share
16:20
Well, pretty much all of it surprises me.
Share
Mark Landler
16:23
These are both what they call "beasts" in the
Conservative Party.
Rishi Sunak
, the chancellor of the exchequer, Sajid Javid
, the Health Secretary. Major figures, people with their own leadership aspirations and though they don't name Chris Pincher
specifically in their letters.Share
16:40
They make it clear that it is the issue of integrity of truthfulness of honesty and credibility that is driving their decisions. So there's really no doubt that they are reacting, not just to
Pincher
but to the cloud of scandal that has hung over Boris Johnson's
government from the very start.Share
17:01
And it's at that moment that people begin to think suddenly, "Maybe
Boris Johnson
won't survive this, maybe he will not escape this latest scandal the way he's been able to wriggle out of so many before". And sure enough, the next morning, there are more resignations due.Share
17:19
A ministerial aide has become the first resignation. Today, John —
Share
Mark Landler
17:24
First it's a trickle and then it starts becoming a steady stream as the hours pass on.
Share
17:30
You said there are probably going to be more resignations and indeed we are just hearing about one.
Share
Mark Landler
17:35
And we get to midday Wednesday, which is customarily the time for this, you know, uniquely British ritual that's called "Prime Minister's questions", where the Prime Minister goes to the
House Of Commons
and he submits himself to questions both from the leader of the opposition, but also members of his own party.Share
Boris Johnson
17:58
Thank you, Mr Speaker today is a big day as we implement the biggest tax cut.
Share
Mark Landler
18:03
It's a rollicking scene. There's a lot of whoops and catcalls and
Boris Johnson
is an acknowledged master of the form. But on this day, he is just absolutely clobbered.Share
Keir Starmer
18:15
Awful behavior unacceptable in any walk of life. It's there for all to see, but he ignores it.
Share
Michael Barbaro
18:23
The labor leader,
Keir Starmer
deploys a full attack on him for his lack of integrity.Share
Keir Starmer
18:29
And it was the same when he and his mates parted their way through lockdown, anyone quitting now, after defending all that hasn't got a shred of integrity. Mr Speaker, isn't this the first recorded case of the sinking ships fleeing the rat.
Share
Mark Landler
18:48
And then a member of his own party stands up and says -
Share
18:52
Does the Prime Minister, think there are any circumstances in which he should resign?
Share
Mark Landler
18:59
Another senior member of the party gets up and re-affirms an earlier call he'd made for
Boris Johnson
to step down.Share
19:08
Today I asked him to do the honorable thing to put the interests of the nation before his own interests and before, in his own words, it does become impossible for government to do his job.
Share
19:20
Prime Minister -
Share
Boris Johnson
19:21
I thank him very much for the point that he's made, he's made again. I just I just couldn't disagree with him more.
Share
Mark Landler
19:32
So,
Johnson
at the end of this session is thoroughly bruised and whatever effort he made to come in looking like he had spirit and defiance is more or less gone. He's a very deflated figure, at the end of this exercise.Share
19:48
We now come to the personal statement I call
Sajid Javid
.Share
19:53
MR Speaker...
Share
Mark Landler
19:56
And that is only magnified when
Sajid Javid
, the health secretary who a day earlier had resigned, stands up to deliver a very emotional personal statement.Share
Sajid Javid
20:09
When the first stories of parties in
Downing Street
emerged late last year. I was personally assured at the most senior level that, and I quote, "there had been no parties in Downing Street
and no rules were broken".Share
Mark Landler
20:24
In which he talks about how he had tried to walk this tightrope between integrity and his desire to be part of this government to be engaged in public service.
Share
Sajid Javid
20:36
And at some point, we have to conclude that enough is enough. I believe that point is now.
Share
Mark Landler
20:46
He then addresses himself directly to his fellow ministers who have not yet resigned.
Share
Sajid Javid
20:52
It is a choice not doing something is an active decision.
Share
Mark Landler
20:57
And basically demands of them the same act that he himself took.
Share
Sajid Javid
21:02
I got into politics to do something not to be somebody. And if I can continue to contribute to public life and my party from the backbenches, it will be a privilege to do so.
Share
Mark Landler
21:15
You just have this extremely dramatic, vivid spectacle and you can almost feel the power ebbing from the Prime Minister by the minute, as you watch this unfold in the
House Of Commons.
Share
21:34
And then we move into the afternoon and by then, this steady stream of resignations really turns into a torrent turns into a flood.
Share
21:46
Developments in.
Share
21:46
Just the last couple of minutes here, another
cabinet
resignation this time, just in the last half an hour or so, five more ministers resigned together in a letter to the Prime Minister said.Share
21:57
42 members of
Parliament
have now quit their government positions, but the prime minister is refusing to go.Share
Mark Landler
22:03
By the end of the day, you're nearing 50
cabinet
Minister senior junior. And then at this point, it's an actual problem just of running the government where his government.Share
Michael Barbaro
22:14
His collapsing around him.
Share
Mark Landler
22:15
His government is collapsing around. And there's a big question about who's gonna run these agencies, who's gonna run these ministries. So not only is the Prime minister engulfed, he's losing his team and the government is really completely paralyzed.
Share
22:36
And at that point, we're moving into the early evening, a delegation of his own
cabinet
members, these are the people who have not yet resigned. They pay a visit to 10 Downing Street
along with senior officials from the Conservative Party
and they say to the prime minister, "Look, your time is up, you've lost the support of the party".Share
22:55
But in the immediate aftermath of this meeting,
Boris Johnson
looked like he was going to remain defiant. He said he had a mandate from the people. He'd won a landslide victory.Share
23:06
His job was to deliver on behalf of the voters and rather than quit, he actually fired one of his closest and longest-standing allies, a man named
Michael Gove
, who had a very senior position in the cabinet.
Gove's crime is that earlier in the day, he had paid a quiet visit to Boris Johnson
and told him that maybe it was time for Johnson
to go. And so late on Wednesday night, word comes out that Michael Gove
has been fired, and the mood around Downing Street
really begins to resemble what I remember from my time covering the Trump
White House. It's almost a Game Of Thrones atmosphere. The knives are out, you know, the prime minister like President Trump
is lashing out at everyone around him.Share
23:53
You don't know what's going to happen next. And that's really how the day ends in this moment of just peak uncertainty, complete paralysis in the government and utter uncertainty about what's gonna happen the next day.
Share
Michael Barbaro
24:07
So,
Mark
, that of course, brings us to Thursday morning in London
.Share
Mark Landler
24:12
That's right. And the city wakes up with a sense of keen anticipation after this really crazy day on Wednesday. But what happens is people begin resigning again. There's several more resignations and then in one particularly damaging moment, the man who
Boris Johnson
named only a day earlier to replace Rishi Sunak
as chancellor.Share
24:37
He comes out and says the Prime Minister should resign. So even people who have been promoted by
Johnson
in the last day or so are now rats leaving a sinking ship. And I think that when that reality dawns on Johnson
, when he realizes just how this exodus is going to deprive him of literally everybody, the reality of the situation at long last sets in.Share
Michael Barbaro
25:05
He realizes that resistance is futile there's nothing more left to do. And sure enough, just two hours later.
Share
Boris Johnson
25:14
Good afternoon, everybody.
Share
Michael Barbaro
25:17
Boris Johnson
steps out to a lectern that's been erected in front of 10 Downing Street
that famous doorway.Share
Boris Johnson
25:24
And in the last few days I've tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we're delivering so much, when we have such a vast mandate, and when we're actually only a handful of points behind in the polls.
Share
Michael Barbaro
25:38
And he delivers a brief, somewhat defiant speech in which he says, "I didn't want to resign, I wanted to stay. But you know, the political establishment in this country sometimes moves like a herd".
Share
Boris Johnson
25:53
It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary
Conservative Party
that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister.Share
Mark Landler
26:05
And in this case it did.
Share
Boris Johnson
26:05
And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them’s the breaks. I know that even if things can sometimes seem dark now, our future together is golden.
Share
26:23
Thank you all very much, thank you.
Share
Mark Landler
26:27
And you know, he turns around and walks back inside and the
Boris Johnson
era is officially over.Share
Michael Barbaro
26:39
Mark, it's so interesting you earlier invoked
Donald Trump
and his defiance in the final days of his presidency. But insofar as the comparison between Trump
and Johnson
feels fair, the story in the UK seems to be that a Conservative Party
acted very decisively and very effectively to oust their leader when he got into trouble rather than protect their leader as many Republicans did with Donald Trump
after January 6th. So this feels like a very different story.Share
Mark Landler
27:11
Yeah I think you're raising a very important point. Michael, there is just a profound difference with the way the Republicans treated their leader and the conservatives treated their leader in
the United Kingdom
in the Republican Party. You see almost no one willing to stand up to Donald Trump
. He's able to impose this kind of rigorous discipline on almost the entire party while in the UK it took a while for them to do this.Share
27:38
But you see a party that gathered itself together that stood up and said, "Enough we want a change". But I do think there is one area where there is you know a commonality and that is the motivation for the conservatives in the UK is not dissimilar to that of Republicans in the US.
Share
27:59
Republicans have stood in line have fallen in line behind
Donald Trump
because they believe he's a winner and they believe the cost of crossing him is to lose themselves. In the United Kingdom
Boris Johnson
was perceived as a winner and for as long as he was he enjoyed that kind of loyalty that kind of discipline. But as it became clear that he was no longer that big winner but indeed a liability, you saw that loyalty began to crumble.Share
Michael Barbaro
28:27
You saw lawmakers decide that their futures were in jeopardy if they continued to toe the line, if they continued to be loyal to him. So, in that respect, there's a similar motivation, even if it has led the parties on each side of the Atlantic two very, very different responses.
Share
28:46
So,
Mark
, what happens now to Boris Johnson
? Because he remains prime minister for some number of weeks, right? The lamest of Lame Ducks. And then what he becomes a private citizen?Share
Mark Landler
29:00
Well, it's very interesting. He's going to be prime minister for anywhere from 1 to 2 to 3 more months. And one can't rule out by the way that something unexpected could happen during that time. He's pledged to be a true caretaker. Well, we'll see, I mean, when is the last time
Boris Johnson
stuck to the rules?Share
29:19
But after he does leave office, he has a number of options. He could decide to stay in
Parliament
, return to the back benches. Other former prime ministers have done that. He could still be an influential player. He could also decide to leave politics altogether. Return to a life of delivering paid speeches of writing newspaper columns of finishing his biography of Shakespeare
.Share
29:42
But I think one thing we know from looking at his history is this is not a guy who is going to go quietly. He likes to be a disruptive presence. Whether he does that from within the
House Of Commons
or outside of it. I think we are certain to see Boris Johnson
be a player in British public life going forward.Share
Michael Barbaro
30:06
So I'm curious now that this is all played out.
Mark
, how the British people regard this man and perhaps how they should regard this man? I mean, are they likely to see him as a tragic figure or as somebody who more or less got what he deserved?Share
Mark Landler
30:22
I think that the answer is, it's complicated. I mean, on the one hand, he is a consequential prime minister, regardless of how his term ended. This is, after all, the leader who took
Britain
out of the European union, the most significant single event since the end of World War Two
.Share
30:43
On the other hand, there's so much about the rest of his government. That was a disappointment. The incompetence, the lack of direction, the endless preoccupations with minutia, the scandals. So
Johnson
is an endlessly complicated figure. Many will simply say this is a narcissist who got what he deserves. Others will feel that it was really a missed opportunity and a great disappointment.Share
31:12
I think the only thing we can say for certainty is that any book on British prime ministers is gonna have a very big chapter on
Boris Johnson
.Share
Michael Barbaro
31:25
Well,
Mark
, thank you very much. We appreciate, get some rest.Share
Mark Landler
31:29
Thanks Michael, I'll do my best.
Share
Michael Barbaro
31:41
We'll be right back.
Share
Break
Michael Barbaro
32:20
Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday,
Derek Chauvin
, the Minneapolis police officer already serving a 22 year state sentence for the murder of George Floyd
was given an additional sentence of 21 years in a federal trial. The new sentence was the result of Chauvin
pleading guilty to using excessive force against both Floyd and a 14 year old boy named John Pope.Share
32:51
In an unrelated but similar incident,
Chauvin
will now serve both sentences concurrently and the WNBA star Brittney Griner
, who has been detained in Russia for the past five months, pleaded guilty on Thursday to bringing cannabis into the country, a crime that can carry a prison term of up to 10 years.Share
33:15
Her plea will accelerate a legal proceeding that is widely seen as stacked against her and speed up the timetable for a potential prisoner swap in which Griner could be exchanged for a Russian who is imprisoned in the
US.
Share
Break
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