Here Lies Boris Johnson
Watching someone take the slow train to an obvious conclusion is always frustrating. Yesterday afternoon, the Conservative politician Sajid Javid stood up in the British Parliament to criticize his party leader, Boris Johnson, for being careless with the truth. “It’s not fair on my ministerial colleagues to go out every morning defending lines that don’t stand up, or don’t hold up,” he said. “At some point we have to conclude that enough is enough. I believe that point is now.”
Johnson took a little longer to acknowledge that reality, but this morning he quit as Conservative leader. He hopes to stay on as prime minister during the contest to replace him, before an official handover in the fall.
Over the past few days, I’ve watched Americans boggle that this is the British system for removing a failing leader—an alchemical mixture of shame, extortion, threats, peer pressure, ambition, and morality, of secret letters and whispered conversations. Just three years ago Johnson resoundingly won a general election, but that doesn’t matter. He cannot govern without the confidence of his party. As he said himself in his statement,
