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Clown case: Boris Johnson already created his own reality with the Brexit campaign.
Now he has been overthrown by his own party
Photo: Tayfun Salci / IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
In cooperation with "The Economist".
The wreckage he will leave behind
A monstrous in-tray awaits Boris Johnson's eventual successor
Dealing with it may be beyond an exhausted Conservative Party
Boris Johnson's premiership started collapsing to the sound of "Zadok the Priest”
.
On July 5th, beneath the windows of Downing Street, the bands of the Household Division were conducting the Beating Retreat, an annual parade marking the closure of camp gates at nightfall. One hour before Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the exchequer, and Sajid Javid, the health secretary, had resigned. In the offices of Whitehall, all hell was breaking loose. On the square below, immaculate precision.
Over the next 36 hours, some 50 members of the government would resign;
countless more MPS would urge Mr Johnson to go.
On the evening of July 6th, a delegation of cabinet ministers—among them Mr Sunak's replacement, Nadhim Zahawi—told him the game was up. His response was a fit of Shakespearean defiance.
He sacked Michael Gove, the closest thing the cabinet had to a greybeard, and insisted upon his personal electoral mandate of 14m voters (a bastardisation of the constitution: Britons elect parliaments, not presidents).
He reared at asking the queen for an election to save himself from his colleagues;
that would have tested constitutional conventions to the limit.
Boris Johnson did what he always does: he looked out for Boris Johnson.
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By the next morning, he did not even have a Potemkin government left to run.
He told his colleagues he would go, but asked to be allowed to stay on to oversee a transition.
Fat chance, thought many;
the most careless of prime ministers could not be a caretaker.
"Evict TODAY or he'll cause CARNAGE," tweeted Dominic Cummings, a vengeful former aide. Mr Johnson had promised to end the instability that blighted Theresa May's short premiership. He has more than matched it (see chart 1).
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