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Things seemed to be under control in Downing Street until Wednesday afternoon, when the finance and health ministers Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid left, and many followed suit, and within 24 hours, 38 members of the British government resigned.
In addition to the ministers, many MPs and Conservative politicians have abandoned Prime Minister Boris Johnson, demanding that he leave office immediately, as he is no longer qualified to lead the United Kingdom in their eyes.
Johnson – who is of Turkish Muslim origin and holds American citizenship – is a delegation to politics from the world of journalism, and has previously served as Mayor of London and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and is the architect of Britain’s exit from the European Union.
When pressure grew on him last Wednesday, the 50-year-old leader was invoking his political strength and ignoring the rapid changes, and therefore he stressed his adherence to power and refused to hold early elections.
Johnson – who has been described as conceited and eccentric – said this is the time to take charge, and continue government work to serve the people who gave him a big mandate in the 2019 elections.
But the man could not hold out another day; To the boos in front of his office, Johnson appeared Thursday, accompanied by his wife and a group of employees who remained by his side to announce his resignation from the presidency of the ruling party.
In the eyes of politicians and journalists, it was not enough for the man to admit defeat and leave power. Rather, he had to apologize to the people and express his remorse for the mistakes and scandals that followed him and pushed him to his downfall.
So what are these scandals and mistakes?
a bottle of wine in the office
At the beginning of this year, the British press published pictures of Boris Johnson during a party in the government office with a bottle of wine next to him, in what appeared to be a New Year’s party and included 4 people.
And this picture dates back to 2020, at the height of the precautionary measures against Corona imposed by the Prime Minister himself, and it was to prevent the organization of celebrations.
Immediately there were calls for Boris Johnson to apologize and resign from his position; It is not acceptable in democratic countries for the prime minister to violate the law and demand that the people respect it.
The police opened investigations into parties allegedly hosted by Johnson in the government office during the quarantine, and ended with a fine; To be the first British Prime Minister to be fined by police for breaking the law.
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, Conservative MP Nick Gibb said Boris Johnson should resign immediately.
But Johnson refused to resign, expressing his “regret” in Parliament, saying: “I understand that and I will fix things in Downing Street, yes we can be trusted to achieve that.”
The mirage of money and jobs
When Johnson came to power three years ago, he promised Britons that they would make a lot of money and jobs by managing their country’s exit from the European Union.
But things are now far from those pledges; Millions of Britons are now facing the worst decline in living standards since the 1950s, under the weight of soaring energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine.
A few days ago, a major think tank said that Britain’s 5.2% drop in GDP was due – mostly – to Britain’s exit from the European Union.
Writing on the Independent newspaper, Adam Forrest attributed to a new study by leading economists that “Brexit” is largely responsible for the loss of billions in trade and tax revenue in recent years.
The British economy is expected to be the weakest among the major countries in 2023, after Russia.
The inflation rate in Britain jumped to 9% last April, the highest level in 40 years, while prices are rising faster than wages, which negatively affects living standards.
The Bank of England expects inflation to peak at 10.25% in October when energy bills will rise again, which will be much faster than average wage increases.
And the bank did not stop there, but expected that energy prices would remain higher than they were before the pandemic until at least the end of 2024, and that economic growth would remain barely above zero, which means that average households are unlikely to see a significant reduction in financial pressures. that you are facing.
“It’s about time, isn’t it? Do you know someone who is so arrogant, ignorant and delusional?” says Helen Dudney, 53, who works in consumer rights. You mean Boris Johnson.
As for Lobby Aquinola – who lost loved ones to the Covid-19 pandemic – she says that “Boris Johnson’s legacy is the death of about 200,000 Britons during his reign.”
“While Johnson will be writing columns for newspapers and earning huge sums of money to give speeches after dinners, nothing will change for families like mine who have been torn apart by his actions.”
The wrong man
While the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was dealing with the country’s economic troubles and trying to recover from the scandal of party organizing in the office, another case emerged, to write an end that caused a great noise in the British scene for several years.
This case concerns politician and MP Chris Pincher, who was appointed by Johnson last January in charge of discipline in the Conservative Party, and appeared to have his confidence.
But Pincher was not qualified to take charge of public affairs, as he had previously been involved in “bad sexual behaviour”, as the Sunday Times reported that he had touched a member of Parliament in a sensitive area inside a café in the House of Commons in 2017.
The British newspapers soon published reports of Pincher’s involvement in several sexual misconduct, which prompted him to resign from the position entrusted to him by the Prime Minister without giving up his membership of Parliament.
This story was not only a scandal for Pincher, as other details emerged that showed Johnson was aware of his friend’s involvement in sexual misconduct, yet chose him to take charge of discipline in the ruling party.
Initially, the Cabinet denied Johnson’s knowledge of Pincher’s antecedents, but the testimonies of government officials proved otherwise. Johnson quickly apologized and admitted that he had made a mistake in choosing an unsuitable person to take over.
From that moment on, the Conservatives broke with Johnson, saying that they could no longer defend the prime minister’s lies and scandals. The Pincher case was the drop that overflowed the cup and marked the end of a politician who started strong and ended up besieged by scandals.
In fact, Johnson was not new to scandal. When asked in 2004 about his extramarital affair with Spectator journalist Petronella White, he replied that it was “nonsense”.
At the time, Johnson was married and the father of four children and enjoyed great confidence among conservatives, and his lie was exposed when the journalist’s mother revealed that her daughter was pregnant and had a miscarriage.
Source : Al Jazeera + agencies + British press
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