Boris Johnson flew back to London from India on Friday, probably wanting to stay longer in a country where he was greeted by dancers, alleys lined with children waving union flags and billboards depicting his disheveled features.
“I felt like Sachin Tendulkar,” said the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, referring to Indian cricket demigod. But away from temples and trade visits, Johnson spent much of his trip to India, looking over his shoulder at the political danger unfolding at home.
By Thursday afternoon, Johnson was facing questions about a new Conservative riot in Westminster, sweat running down his face in a series of televised interviews at a Gujarat temple in the 40-degree heat as the scale of the devastation became clear.
Margaret Thatcher learned in 1990 about the dangers of being abroad when a party riot was in full swing. Johnson could do little more than watch him lose control of his own deputies, and many were no longer willing to support him on the “partisan” affair.
A close ally of the London prime minister said: “He had to be here, working in the teahouses and trying to reassure his colleagues. Instead, people have just seen videos in which he looks furious. “
By the time he ended his two-day visit to New Delhi on Friday, a frustrated Johnson declined to talk about the Covid blockade parties, preferring to answer questions about them from reporters, talking about wind farms cooperating with India.
But the situation for Johnson is difficult. On Thursday, it became clear that his party managers in Westminster did not understand the deteriorating mood among Tory MPs, let alone how to control them.
“I had a feeling in my bones that something was going to go wrong,” said a member of Johnson’s team in India as Chris Heaton-Harris, the Conservatives’ chief whip, backed the idea on Wednesday night to ask Tory MPs to solve the issue down the road again.
Heaton-Harris, who was recruited to restore party discipline in February, told Johnson that Tory lawmakers would support the destructive amendment, which would delay Labor’s attempts for weeks to spark an investigation into whether he deliberately misled parliament for the party.
On Thursday, Heaton-Harris realized that there was a complete revolt in his hands, with the possibility of ministerial resignations and the equally alarming prospect of Conservative MPs simply returning home instead of supporting the prime minister.
Johnson, during a visit to the JCB factory in Gujarat, had spoken of the deteriorating mood and agreed to simply accept the inevitable. “There were some questions about the scourging,” said one cabinet member with an underestimation. Johnson was furious.
“So much for the new effective operation,” said a former cabinet minister. “The whips did not check with the people whether they would accept the amendment, so they realized that there would be a lot of restraint only after they introduced it. So they backed off. Shambhals. ”
As a result, the Municipal Privileges Commission is now joining the Sofia Police and Senior Civil Servant Sue Gray in conducting investigations into the party affair.
The fact that Heaton-Harris, widely liked by Tory MPs and trusted by Johnson, so misread his party takes the party’s saga into a new dangerous phase: Number 10 can’t be sure what exactly his MPs will do next.
Johnson hopes that his “business as usual” approach and his firm stance on Ukraine will put a protective ring around him and that there will never be a critical point where at least 54 MEPs – the number needed to vote of trust – will mobilize against him.
But Conservative MPs are tired of the apparently endless and caustic saga. On Tuesday, worried about the prime minister, several lawmakers remained in the municipality to support their leader as he made a statement.
The bad news is likely to accumulate in the coming weeks, with the possibility of the prime minister receiving more police fines, the publication of Gray’s report, which is expected to tear culture apart at number 10, and local elections on May 5th.
This date is seen as a moment of reckoning for some Tory MPs. Even some MPs who have privately supported Johnson so far believe the game is over and he is busy.
A conservative who previously supported Johnson said: “We are now in an area where we need to support a lawbreaker. And that’s why he has to leave. “
Tobias Eloud, chairman of the municipality’s defense committee and a critic of Johnson, told the BBC: “Now vote, not vote of confidence.”
A former cabinet minister says he has “significant support” for Jeremy Hunt, a former foreign minister, to replace Johnson after the May election, although the prime minister is taking advantage of the fact that there is no clear alternative waiting to replace him. .
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Steve Baker, a former minister who turned against the prime minister on Thursday, told the Commons he was outraged by Johnson’s behavior during a private MP event earlier in the week, where instead of apologizing, he sounded in the mood.
Another MP at the private event said: “In public, he may have been all remorseful and apologetic, but behind closed doors, it is clear that he still does not understand.
Ministers are also tired of compromising their own reputations by defending Johnson. “Every time you go on TV, that’s all they ask you,” said one. “It feels like it will never end.”
But cabinet supporters insisted that the party would eventually step back. “The truth is that this is not final and the prime minister will recover, as long as there are no major events ahead,” said one minister. But after this week’s events, no one can be sure what will happen next.
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