Boris Johnson’s Party Problem

There are quite a few underlying reasons — political, personal, and ideological — why British prime minister Boris Johnson may now be forced out of office, but that the trigger for his potential downfall has been a series of “parties” (what constitutes a party is now a contentious topic) appears to have surprised some on this side of the Atlantic. To them, it seems, well, a touch weird that a prime minister with a healthy majority could lose his job because his staffers occasionally enjoyed drinks at their workplace (or in the garden outside) — and that he had attended, albeit briefly, one of these get-togethers — even if it was at a time when tough Covid lockdown controls had heavily restricted social gatherings. That Johnson might not have been entirely accurate in his evolving statements about what had occurred, what he knew, and so on, well . . . #ShouldersShrugged.

That it is far easier to depose a British prime minister than it is to unseat an American president explains part of that surprise: Parliamentary and presidential systems operate on a very different basis, and the internal procedures of the Conservative Party, in particular, contain their own capacity for mayhem. It is also the case that, as mentioned above, if Johnson goes, much, much more than those parties or “work events” — or evasions about them — will be to blame.

About the Author

Andrew Stuttaford

Andrew Stuttaford is the editor of National Review's Capital Matters.

Featured Tags

There are quite a few underlying reasons — political, personal, and ideological — why British prime minister Boris Johnson may now be forced out of office, but that the trigger for his potential downfall has been a series of “parties” (what constitutes a party is now a contentious topic) appears to have surprised some on this side of the Atlantic. To them, it seems, well, a touch weird that a prime minister with a healthy majority could lose his job because his staffers occasionally enjoyed drinks at their workplace (or in the garden outside) — and that he had attended, albeit briefly, one of these get-togethers — even if it was at a time when tough Covid lockdown controls had heavily restricted social gatherings. That Johnson might not have been entirely accurate in his evolving statements about what had occurred, what he knew, and so on, well . . . #ShouldersShrugged.

That it is far easier to depose a British prime minister than it is to unseat an American president explains part of that surprise: Parliamentary and presidential systems operate on a very different basis, and the internal procedures of the Conservative Party, in particular, contain their own capacity for mayhem. It is also the case that, as mentioned above, if Johnson goes, much, much more than those parties or “work events” — or evasions about them — will be to blame.