I hope you’re rested after part one of our recap of British politics in 2022 because there’s no slowing down. If the state of Boris Johnson’s premiership was a game of Buckaroo, the months of April to June provided the last few adornments of sleaze and impropriety needed to send that bronco bucking. Among all of that we enjoyed seeing a chancellor embroiled in a tax loophole scandal, a rapidly rising cost of living and a migrant deportation scheme that couldn’t be more outrageous if the planes the government used ran on puppies’ tears.
April
Boris Finally Pays (About £50)
Remember when governmental scandals were about political espionage and covert operations? Watergate was appalling, for sure, but at least there’s an element of glamour to what Nixon was responsible for: night-time break-ins, spying operations, wiretapping. What was Johnson guilty of allowing? The inability to handle booze, follow simple rules and keep away from playground equipment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not excusing what Johnson and Co. did, merely highlighting how it’s really quite a silly scandal to get wrapped up in.
In April, Downing Street confirmed that Carrie and Boris Johnson, as well as Rishi Sunak, had all been issued fixed penalty notices (FPNs), meaning that they had been found guilty of breaching lockdown rules with at least one of the many illicit parties and gatherings during lockdown. In all, the Met issued 30 more FPNs, bringing the total up to 50.
With Johnson unable to separate himself from the fiasco, calls for him to resign continued growing in number. It simply wasn’t sustainable to have him in power. Political conversation in this country, as mired in melodrama as it so often is, had reached a nearly literal point of stagnation. Nothing could be done, nothing could be said without it coming back to partygate. It was like a constant game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, except with all the celebrities, Hollywood movies and superstar gossip replaced with stuffy politicians, boring government buildings and lame get-togethers.
Touchy-Feely Tories
A hat-trick of headline-stealing scandals spun around the news cycle this month courtesy of MPs who seemed to struggle with that fine art of acting with…oh what was the phrase? Ah. that’s right: sensibly, appropriately and with respect to others. It’s funny how often that seems to be the case.
First, revelations emerged about cocaine-sniffing, bread-baking (if only) MP David Warburton. He’d been suspended from the party and was now being admitted to a psychiatric hospital following three separate allegations of sexual harassment, on top of accusations of secretly borrowing £100,000 (later reported to be £150,000) from Russian businessman Roman Joukovski. It seemed that the ex-music teacher was in a pretty damning situation. Indeed, the parliamentary commissioner for standards found that he had breached the parliamentary code of conduct over the ordeal. Still, it didn’t result in any long-term consequences: he’s back in his parliamentary seat and free from sanctions right now. In terms of contributing to the overall decline of the public’s opinion on Tories, that hardly made a difference, though.
Wakefield MP Imran Khan didn’t get off so lightly when he was sentenced for 18 months for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008. That’s bad enough as it is, and it smeared buckets of sleaze over the party that already had the stuff dribbling out of its nose. Making matters worse, it was revealed that back in 2020 Khan sat on panels to provide the government with advice on fighting child sexual abuse. What was lesson one of that panel? “Kick me out”, I’d assume.
Finally, and most honourably (relatively speaking), was Tiverton and Honiton MP Neil Parish, who resigned after being caught watching pornography twice in the House of Commons. As he told it, the first time was an accident; he was attempting to look at tractors (yes, really) and the 18+ material just popped up. The second time, he admitted, was all him. The temptation must have simply been too much to resist.
Let’s move past how silly that is as a mitigating statement and address the larger question it raises: did…did he not know that stuff existed on the internet? Did he think that he’d stumbled upon some secret corner of the internet where people roam naked and free? For that matter, does he now think that the only way to access it is by searching for tractors?
What did Khan and Parish’s departures mean for the rest of the country? They meant there were two parliamentary seats up for grabs for whichever party could earn them: Wakefield, and Tiverton and Honiton. Yes, I know they sound like three seats, but trust me, it’s two. And how did they decide who’d take over from the former Tory MPs? Local by-election of course! Here’s a spoiler: neither seat stayed Conservative.
A Taxing Month for Sunak
In the month that Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga released (just trying to lighten the mood), inflation was taking hold, forcing prices up in shops. The energy price cap had also just leapt up to £1,971, and experts forecasted far higher figures for the future. In addition, the national insurance increase Rishi Sunak had previously announced was coming into effect, essentially slicing more off of the average worker’s take-home pay than before.
It’s a pretty bleak financial picture, I think you’ll agree. But at least we were able to take solace in the fact that Chancellor Rishi Sunak had his head screwed on straight. He was the furlough guy! He knew how to make decisions with the public’s best interests in mind, so when he spun the dials of the economy to make the average worker poorer, we knew he had righteousness and goodness in his heart. After all, paying taxes hurts, but it’s for the greater good. Isn’t that right, Rishi?
Wait, what’s that you’re saying about tax avoidance loopholes? Non-dom status? Oh no, Rishi, first the lockdown parties and now this!? You were meant to protect the public, not loom over them on your wife’s tax-exempt ivory tower!
All playing aside, Sunak’s reputation took a real beating when The Independent revealed his wife was using an, admittedly legal, tax avoidance loophole to withhold millions in taxes from the UK government. Claiming to be a non-domiciled individual (non-dom if you’re in a hurry) in the UK, Akshata Murty claimed to not be permanently living in the country, despite having full citizenship. This meant she was exempt from paying tax on overseas earnings, which when you consider her 700 million dollars worth of shares in Indian company Infosys, is quite a significant saving.
It’s worth doubling down on the fact that none of this was outright illegal, but when you’re the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it’s not the best look to have your name plastered all over a story of tax evasion. In fact, it prompted many to argue that his chances of throwing Johnson off the top rung and becoming PM were lower than ever. Understandable. I mean, who’d vote for him after partygate and this controversy? Thank god we’ve got the democratic process to make the public’s voice heard. They’d definitely never vote for this guy as Prime Minister.
Priti Cruel, Patel
Imagine, just for a second, that you’re about to do something. Could be anything: put on a coat, throw out some stale bread, jump on a bus. Imagine you’re about to do any of those things and you discover that members of your own government, torture prevention experts, the UN, a bulk of the nation’s press and the archbishops of England and Wales collectively urge you not to. Do you do that thing? I certainly wouldn’t. Priti Patel, on the other hand, most definitely would, and the Rwanda asylum plan stands as proof.
Designed to deter migrants, refugees and people smugglers from choosing the UK as their destination, it instead convinced countless people that certain members of the Conservative Party were operating with a completely different, alien moral compass to the rest of us.
In theory, the scheme would have seen illegal migrants and asylum seekers who set foot in the UK forced on planes and flown to Rwanda, a country that saw one of the most recent modern genocides and continues to have a lacklustre relationship with human rights. In fact, 10 months prior to this scheme’s introduction, a UK rights ambassador condemned Rwanda’s failure to investigate human rights violations.
It’s hard to imagine a less compassionate plan for handling migration and asylum seekers than this, that is, without pulling out the medieval torture equipment. This wasn’t a thought-out plan. It was an extreme way to threaten and cast out migrants and asylum seekers, both at great cost and with little regard for human rights.
Needless to say, people were upset, and with the first flight scheduled for June, there wasn’t much time to keep that plane grounded.
May
Conservatives Losing Their Grip
Don’t you just love local government? It’s where the real nitty-gritty work gets done. National politics is all very glamorous, with its foreign policies and headline-dominating scandals. Speak to the average person, though, and they’ll sooner discuss the council’s bin-collection efficiency than their government’s foreign policy.
It was lovely, then, to see smaller scale politics getting some appreciation this year with the UK’s local elections. They saw just about 200 local councils face the public’s vote, alongside almost 7,000 councillors and seven mayors. So, how did it go? Brilliantly! If you’re chummy with Labour or the Liberal Democrats. If you’re Conservative…well, you might want to take a seat, if you’ve still got one.
All told, the Tories lost almost 500 council seats, with Labour snatching 108 and the Liberal Democrats riding high with a gain of 222. Notably for the Conservatives, they also lost control of Westminster and Wandworth to Labour, something that hadn’t happened since the 70s.
For all my talk about local government being where the real fundamentals of everyday life are decided, I must admit the very non-local reason behind the newsworthiness of these elections. They were symbolic. At a time when the next general election was likely a ways off, they stood as a bellwether for who the public wanted in charge.
And who did they want in charge? Anyone but the ‘lockdown party’ Party. Labour may not have been perfect, with its own reports of sleaze and misconduct floating around, but this cohort of Conservatives had fallen so far in the public’s estimation that even people who identified with traditional Conservative values were turning their backs.
The Partygate That Never Ends
As if the taste of Tory couldn’t get any more sour under Johnson, May also saw the Met dish out another wave of fixed penalty notices, bringing the total to a whopping 100. Johnson was spared from formal chastisement this time, although Lord Geidt, his ethics advisor, wasn’t about to let him get off so easily.
Despite trying to suppress Geidt by withdrawing his power to launch independent investigations, Johnson wasn’t able to stop the advisor from telling a commons committee that it was “reasonable” to believe he had broken the ministerial code, a breach that would have mandated his resignation. At least, that would have been the case, if the PM hadn’t rewritten the code the previous month to make wet putty of any potential consequences of his actions. Under his new code, an apology or temporary suspension of pay could adequately replace resignation. An apology?! I’ve seen kids at school face harsher punishments for sneezing in assembly.
Meanwhile, the long-awaited Sue Gray report landed in its entirety, alongside a damning Panorama report which revealed yet more scandalous behind-closed-doors behaviour in Downing Street. Together, they chronicled a cavalcade of Conservative chaos. They covered everything from mistreatment of cleaning staff and fights in Downing Street to accusations of fundamental leadership failures and widespread alcohol problems in government. Reports even surfaced that Johnson had asked Sue Gray to ditch the report because of the Met’s own investigation.
With such a disregard for rules, ethical standards and consequences, it’s a wonder Johnson could ever cope in the real world. If any of us had his ‘rules don’t count for us’ mindset, we’d be forever adjusting our watches to skip boring meetings or grab an extra hour in bed, scribbling over price tags or ignoring queues at the bank. Do you think it would work for us? I’ll be right back—if you don’t hear from me I’ve either made it as prime minister or landed in police custody.
Starmer’s Hot and Spicy Controversy
Being part of the Labour party must have been magical during the height of the partygate scandal. Party leader Keir Starmer was free to sit back and watch the undoing of his competition. Just picture him, chowing down on a fresh curry and a cold pint over there. Oh wait, no, Starmer. That’s not a work event you’re at, is it? With a beer? In Lockdown?! Just wait until the press finds out about this.
Of course, I’m talking about beergate, the yin to the partygate’s yang. It all stemmed from photos taken by Ivo Delingpole, the son of a Breitbart writer James Delingpole. Showing Starmer and colleagues enjoying a takeaway curry and beer in Durham during lockdown, Ivo’s photos gave Conservative ministers and right-wing press red-hot ammunition to launch at Labour following months of weathering partygate attacks..
Not wanting to give the impression of living in a glass house, Starmer assured the public and his critics that the incident was merely a break at the end of a long working day. Based on the rules at the time, eating inside with colleagues was permissible in a working context and if it was “reasonably necessary for work”. As for whether alcohol is necessary for anyone’s work, particularly a politician’s, is up for debate. However, even without the work-related justification, it seemed unfair to draw an equivalence between this incident and the trail of recklessness that was partygate.
Nevertheless, Durham police saw fit to fulfil its duties and investigate the potentially rule-breaking takeaway. Starmer, deputy leader Angela Rayner and an assortment of other Labour members found detailed questionnaires landing on their laps, probing for details of the event. After months of teasing, criticising and challenging the Conservatives over partygate, Labour was now teetering over its own cliff of rule-breaking consequences, with a few extra craggly rocks of hypocrisy waiting on the way down.
There was only one thing for it. Unlike Johnson, who was still clinging to power, Starmer pledged to resign if he was found guilty of breaching lockdown rules. It was a gamble, but if it paid off, Starmer would come out of the controversy on even higher moral ground than before. Luckily for him, and for Labour’s standing in the country, he was eventually cleared of all allegations.
Truss’s Trade War
With Putin waging war in Europe and UK politicians waging war (of a sort) on each other, it seemed our politicians were getting in the mood for conflict as the midpoint of 2022 drew nearer. Liz Truss was one such politician hungry for a fight. As foreign secretary, she took it upon herself to start picking at the seams of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a piece of Brexit legislation that maintained the free flow of goods between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. More importantly, it also sought to keep the peace on both sides of the Irish border and prevent a backslide into Troubles-era division and violence.
That was the intention at least. From another perspective, the Northern Ireland Protocol caused mountains of additional paperwork for businesses and hampered trade across the Irish sea. It also enforced a differentiating factor between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, something that Unionists were fundamentally opposed to. In fact, the consequences of the protocol were so egregious to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) that it refused to declare an executive, thereby clogging up the Unionist-Republican power sharing agreement and freezing the government.
As Truss saw it, the Northern Ireland Protocol was failing to serve its purpose. She took it upon herself, then, to draft pieces of legislation that would override elements of the protocol. To clarify, the Northern Ireland Protocol was part of the Brexit negotiations, that long, long, long era of politics which drove a wedge between Britain and the EU wider than the one already caused by Brexit passing in the first place. Now, Truss was playing with the idea of ripping up parts of that agreement. In other words, she was looking to do a little dance on the buried corpse that was the EU-UK relationship.
It’s worth stating that the reasons for wanting to challenge the Northern Ireland Protocol were valid. It was a flawed solution from the start, with Johnson, who was key in securing it, reportedly not fully understanding the implications of what he was signing back in 2019. Nevertheless, to turn back on them would only have sparked bitterness amongst EU representatives, causing a ripple effect that could have escalated into an all-out trade war. And all of this is without touching upon Article 16, a piece of the protocol that allowed for one side to suspend elements of the legislation in order to prevent long-term societal, economic or environmental problems from unfolding. If that article was triggered, however, the potential damage could have been even greater.
June
And so, with tensions with Europe reaching new highs, and with increasing numbers of Tory MPs calling for the PM’s resignation, we limp over to June.
Boris ‘No Confidence’ Johnson
Are you sick of hearing about Boris Johnson yet? So were a good chunk of the Conservative Party. In June, after weeks of reports of MPs handing in their letters of no confidence to the group of backbench MPs known as the 1922 Committee, its leader Graham Brady announced a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Was this it? Was this the moment Johnson’s grip on the country was to come to an end? Surprisingly, no. Despite numerous MPs wanting him to go, there was a belief that ousting the Prime Minister would cause such chaos within the party that it could not recover. Plus, the prevailing idea was that Johnson was good at elections, and it was his manifesto that people voted for in the first place.
So, like choosing crackers for dinner over razor blades, the Conservatives settled for disappointment because any viable alternative seemed worse. So you see, that’s how we ended up sticking with Boris Johnson as our PM, and that’s where he stays today. Are you spotting something here? A minor inaccuracy, perhaps? Yeah, there’s more to this story…just hang tight.
The Rwanda Plan That Never Was
It was the 14th of June. All was ready to go for the first flight of the government’s Rwanda deportation scheme. The seven passengers were seatbelted, secured and making their orders for the in-flight meal (I wonder what they were serving). Then, at the very last minute, salvation came from the good old European Court of Human Rights!
The court successfully argued that Parliament’s judgement of Rwanda as a safe third-world country was irrational. Furthermore, there were no mechanisms established for any of the deportees to legally return to the UK if a future challenge to their deportation was successful.
Even if the Rwanda story wasn’t over for 2022, at least this episode stood out as a victory, certainly for the test flight’s seven unfortunate victims.
Sturgeon Wants Out (The Sequel)
Does Scotland want to be an independent country? In 2014, apparently 55.3% of the population thought “no”. That was the result of the “once in a generation” independence referendum that settled the question of how long a generation is (about eight years). That’s right, in 2022, after eight years and…um, a whole new generation, Sturgeon announced another referendum to be held in October 2023.
After years of prepping for independence, not to mention the turmoil of Brexit, Sturgeon believed that Scotland was more ready and willing for independence than ever before. What did PM Boris Johnson think? Nothing positive: he outright rejected, not that that bothered Sturgeon. After all, she’d thought of a backup plan. If the Scottish National Party was prevented from holding a second referendum, it would instead treat the next UK general election as a “de facto referendum” on independence.
De facto? What do you mean you don’t know what de facto means?! Nah, I’m just kidding. I had to Google it, too. (FYI: It’s something that exists regardless of what any rule or law states or implies.) One way or another, Sturgeon was going to have her second referendum, and this one was going to count…presumably unless it had the same result as the first one.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Ethics Has Left The Building
If there’s one thing the Prime Minister’s independent ethics advisor likes, it’s an ethical Prime Minister. It follows, then, that Lord Geidt probably wasn’t the happiest chap being the angel on the shoulder of Boris Johnson, someone for whom words like “honesty” and “integrity” mattered about as much as the suggested serving size on cereal.
On the 16th, after having already suggested the PM had broken the ministerial code, Geidt took off his wings and climbed down off Johnson’s shoulder. Makes sense, really. The PM was never going to take ethics advice, so Geidt may as well have started working on something more realistic, like teaching birds to swim or a spatula to feel love.
With Geidt gone, who was there to take over? A big, fat load of nothing. Johnson never sought to appoint another advisor, obviously. Only writing this now, in December, has the prime minister finally appointed a new ethics advisor. Let’s hope this one’s opinion is respected more than a hat stand.
Boris’s Final Blow
After almost three years of premiership and a string of controversies longer than the list of Tory donors, Johnson was so, so close to walking the prime ministerial plank. Both opponents and party allies were calling on him to jump, despite surviving a vote of no confidence. All he needed was a little push, or maybe a pinch.
Pincher, Chris Pincher: that was the name that brought down Boris Johnson. Already having been at the pointy end of misconduct allegations back in 2017, which he was admittedly cleared of, Pincher was an unlikely choice for Johnson’s deputy chief whip. That’s a role, by the way, which stands in charge of party discipline and behaviour. Please keep that in mind whilst you read on.
In late June, at a Conservative private members’ club known as the Carlton Club, Pincher was accused of sexually harassing two men. He was drunk, so drunk that he had to be escorted to a taxi home. The next day, Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip and was suspended as a Conservative MP. In his widely reported resignation letter, he said that he’d drunk “far too much” and “embarrassed myself and other people”.
In actual fact, he’d done a lot more than that. By enjoying the free pass for misconduct that Boris Johnson had afforded him (more on that next time), Pincher’s exposure flew back in the Prime Minister’s face. This was one scandal more than the nation, and more importantly, the Conservative Party could stand. This was the start of the final chapter for Boris Johnson, and in the coming days, it’d be his own resignation letter on the top of every news bulletin and front page in the country.
Sadly, that’s a story for another day. June is over, and with it ends part two of 2022 in British politics. Come back for part three, where we meet our fourth prime minister in just over six years. Let’s hope this one’s a winner…