Johnson thinks he is like Churchill, but his true equivalents are Trump and Berlusconi

He will never quit, so this serial liar and incompetent will need to be thrown out - and hopefully soon will be. English original of article in La Stampa today

Britain had a weekend of theatrical pageantry to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years as monarch, but then a day of drama over the future of the man who is nominally “her” prime minister, Boris Johnson. That day of drama suggests that, for all the stability and continuity that the Queen represents, Britain is in fact destined for political instability and more change, six years after Johnson led the successful campaign for Brexit.

The country has an enormous amount of respect and admiration for the Queen, but neither the nation nor his own Conservative Party have similar levels of respect for Prime Minister Johnson. In a vote of confidence that was suddenly called by rebel MPs over his leadership, a remarkable 41% of his MPs voted against him with 59% still supporting him. That level of disloyalty is the worst ever seen by a governing British political party in a confidence vote.

Admittedly, the vote nevertheless means that Johnson has survived to fight another day. But the fact that his own party forced a sudden vote on his leadership, only two-and-a-half years since he won the largest parliamentary majority the Conservatives had enjoyed since the days of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, was itself a very bad omen. Now, the fact that two-fifths of the parliamentary party voted against him indicates that he is seriously wounded.

He is unlikely to admit it. Mr Johnson likes to compare himself to Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime leader, but the two contemporary politicians he actually most closely resembles are Donald Trump and Silvio Berlusconi. With Trump, Johnson shares the view that it is a mistake ever to admit defeat. With Berlusconi, Johnson shares the view that optimism, a smile and a joke will always eventually win the day. And, like both those men, he believes that there is always another chance, if only you can survive and wait.

The difficulty is that the British public do not seem to agree, and Britain’s electoral system is one in which the winner takes all. In our general elections, there is no real space for the mere survivor. The Conservatives are now about 10 percentage points behind the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls. And on every important measure – trust, competence, economic management – Labour is now ahead.

The next general election does not have to be held until December 2024, which is nearly two and a half years away. So Mr Johnson may think he has plenty of time to recharge his political energies and recover his and his party’s position. In theory, that is true. But the path between now and then is strewn with obstacles, most immediately two parliamentary by-elections in traditional Conservative seats that his party is very likely to lose, and a decision due by a Parliamentary committee over whether the prime minister has lied to Parliament, which is officially an offence which requires his resignation. So this dramatically bad vote looks like just the beginning. There is more drama to come.

Why is everyone so negative about Boris Johnson? The basic answer is that during his three years in 10 Downing Street he has been a very unconvincing and often incompetent prime minister. His sole strength from a party point of view is that he won the 2019 general election. But his management of the covid-19 pandemic during 2020 was disturbingly erratic. His government has been surrounded by quite well-founded allegations of corruption. And most recently and notoriously he and his staff totally failed to obey the lockdown laws that they designed and imposed on the rest of the country. They even held a party on the evening before the state funeral for the Queen’s husband.

At first, Mr Johnson was considered a clown by his critics. But that was quite popular with some of the public. However in office he has been seen as not just a clown but as dishonest and a very poor leader. That is why his approval rating in the country is at rock bottom.

What difference does this make to anyone outside Britain? The answer is that the first interest in Europe is a kind of German-style “Schadenfreude”: pleasure at the discomfort of others, especially a country that disturbed Europe so badly through Brexit. But, second, this matters for the war against Russia, a war which Russia began against Ukraine but which all of Europe needs to stand together on if Ukraine is to win. Britain has played an important role in that war, a role closely alongside the United States, which means that an unstable Britain is a problem for the whole of Europe.

Let us not despair, however. Boris Johnson is very likely to be replaced soon as British prime minister, for his wounds really are severe. The Conservative Party has been termed “the stupid party” but it is not known for being suicidal. Moreover, Britain is anyway at the end of a long, now 12-year period of government by the Conservative Party, a political cycle which recent history suggests will end at the next general election. The long-term story of Europe’s relationship with its troublesome neighbour, Britain, will not be written by the clown Boris Johnson but by a successor government, most probably from the centre-left.