Boris Johnson: Why Conservative MPs risk disaster for party and country if they fail to replace him quickly – Scotsman comment

To Conservative MPs unsure about whether Boris Johnson is a winner or a loser, we’d like to suggest he is almost certainly a bigger asset to the Labour party than Keir Starmer.

However, following the Tories’ by-election defeats in Tiverton and Honiton, and Wakefield, a cynical theory is doing the rounds that it would be electorally advantageous for the party to keep Johnson in power until after this winter.

The idea is he would absorb the public’s anger as many go hungry and cold, before being sacrificed to the electoral gods. A new leader would then have just enough time to win the country over before the 2024 general election.

This risks becoming the approach simply as a consequence of political inertia, but, whether by accident of design, it would be a catastrophe not just for the Conservatives but the country as a whole.

Johnson is facing a Commons committee inquiry into whether he misled parliament over the Partygate affair, and it is an open-and-shut case. The Prime Minister’s lack of honesty is already a running theme and this impression of him is only going to get worse.

If Johnson tells striking workers there is no money for pay rises, many will simply not believe him. That will only result in rising discontent as we head towards what could be a severe recession.

At a time when the country desperately needs a strong, competent and caring leader it can believe in, we will have Johnson. And he will be distracted by the need to make continual efforts to defend himself. It's an obvious recipe for disaster and the Tory party may never be forgiven.

Conservative MPs must not delay over ousting Boris Johnson (Picture: Julian Simmonds/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Instead, the Prime Minister must be urgently replaced by a One Nation Conservative, someone capable of restoring honour and decency to the office, who will scrap the immoral Rwanda migrant scheme, and mend fences with the European Union.

Johnson has deliberately picked a fight with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol – characteristically seeking to go back on his word – and this could descend into a trade war at precisely the wrong moment.

Great shifts in British politics do not happen often, but if the Conservatives fail to act in the national interest at this moment of crisis, they will pay a heavy price. And they will deserve it.