On Saturday night, Boris Johnson’s leadership suffered another major blow because the person overseeing Brexit was resigning from the cabinet.
Conservative MPs have warned the Prime Minister that he must regain control of the government in order to continue as leader before the next election, so Lord Frost will leave the government after his dissatisfaction with the government. Brexit Negotiations and broader concerns about the government’s Covid policy and tax increases.
After a series of scandals and humiliating by-election failures last week caused his party to lose its 23,000 majority, the shocked departure is another dangerous moment for Johnson.
Frost’s departure is another sign of major disagreements within the Conservative Party.
In recent weeks, this colleague has been expressing his concerns about tax increases and the re-implementation of Covid restrictions. It is understood that he has publicly opposed the increase in national insurance to cover medical and social health expenditures.
He was also worried about Plan B’s Covid measures, which triggered the largest Conservative rebellion in history under Johnson’s leadership.
At a meeting last month, he said: “I’m very happy that a free Britain, or at least a happy England, may now be the most free country in the world in terms of Covid restrictions. There are no mask regulations, no vaccine passports, but May it always be like this.”
However, Frost also had to accept concessions on Brexit, and the British government gave up its request to prevent the European Court of Justice from becoming the final arbiter of Northern Ireland’s trade rules.
The government also abandoned his threat to trigger Article 16 of the Brexit agreement, which would suspend part of the trade agreement reached for Northern Ireland.
Whitehall insiders said that Frost recently left the government to contact Johnson because he believes that the Brexit negotiations have not made progress. It has been agreed that he will leave at the end of January. However, this came after news of his planned resignation leaked.
Arlene Foster, the former chief minister of Northern Ireland, called Frost’s resignation “significant.” Liberal Democratic Party foreign affairs spokesperson Laila Moran said: “The rat is escaping from Boris Johnson’s shipwreck.”
Senior Conservative MPs said that they believe that the rapid rise in prices and tax increases in the spring, followed by the Conservative Party’s fiasco in the May local elections, will mark the beginning of the end of Johnson’s term as prime minister.
After the Liberal Democrats defeated the by-election on the previously safe North Shropshire Conservative Party seat, the Prime Minister was told that he only had three to four months to turn the situation around, or he might be ousted.
Although all members of the party agree that as the Omicron variant spreads like wildfire, it is not the time to strike, but many people are beginning to worry about losing their seats in the next general election and saying that May will be the decisive month. Frustration It was deep, and the anger was high, but members of Congress said that they must put it on hold for the time being.
A former minister said: “If there is no pandemic, I will write and sign now, and then send it to Graham Brady. [chair of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers] Trigger a leadership competition. And I think most of us would do it. “
Another former minister stated that although lawmakers agreed that Johnson should have time to get back to his original state in the new year-after a catastrophic period, the ruling-breaking party No. 10 scandal dominated the headlines-but Few people believe that he will change.
The former minister said: “Boris is unwilling to introduce new people, he is unwilling to rejoin the parliamentary party, he is unwilling to commit rigid corruption, and he is unwilling to make details.
“Everyone is saying:’Let’s go through the process of giving him a chance to change,’ but we all know what’s going on, it’s not pleasant. We are facing leadership challenges. The next measure is place. election.”
Martin Vickers, a loyal supporter of Johnson and a member of the 1922 committee’s executive committee, stated that he was “confident” that the prime minister would be able to reiterate his strong leadership before the 2016 Brexit referendum and the 2019 election , But added: “He has to do this. Stay away and avoid the drift of the past few weeks.”
Charles Walker, the former vice chairman of the 1922 committee, said it would be “unreasonable” to try to get rid of Johnson in the next few weeks, but he warned that as the cost of living increases, there will be difficult times in the future.
“For various reasons, the next six months will be extremely challenging, but mainly Omicron and another iteration of this virus will have an impact on the broken supply chain and the cost of living,” he said.
“Under this situation, the Conservatives cannot conduct a leadership contest. It just doesn’t make sense. Having said that, it is clear that in the next three months, we cannot repeat the past three months.”
Last week, Sir Roger Gal, a prominent Conservative Party figure, became the first Conservative Party member to say that he had sent a letter to Brady. According to party regulations, if the chairman of the committee receives 54 letters in favor of a vote of no confidence in Johnson, he will be required to proceed to the first stage.
If British voters now begin to blame the government for rising prices, the Conservative Party fears that high-level changes may be their only hope. Next spring, the government will face the dual pressure of tax increases and price increases, which will further affect living standards.
In April, the energy regulator Ofgem is expected to significantly increase the natural gas price ceiling to protect millions of households from wholesale price fluctuations. In recent months, several high-profile natural gas suppliers have gone bankrupt due to their inability to supply energy to households at prices below market prices.
