Why Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton are united in their rejection of Boris Johnson - The YP Says

Conversely, in his victory speech, the newly elected MP for Tiverton and Honiton - a corner of the country uncanny in its resemblance to rural North Yorkshire - Liberal Democrat Richard Foord sought to explain quite how he and his party had managed such an incredible turnaround.

He said: “I can tell you that leadership means acting with decency and integrity. It means keeping your word. It means setting an example and putting other people’s needs before your own.

"And yet your behaviour, Mr Johnson, makes a mockery of leadership. By any measure, you are unfit to lead.”

He goes on to say: “Thousands of lifelong Conservative voters are now appalled by Boris Johnson’s lies and fed up with being taken for granted.” Well, he would say that though, right?

The thrust of Mr Foord’s intended message was that the Liberal Democrats had envisioned a political proposition so compelling that the electorate nationwide is enchanted by his party which, 250 miles away in Wakefield, secured less than two per cent of the vote with 508 - 79 fewer than the Green Party and 12,658 fewer than the constituency winners. Now that, I think is key.

Look at it like this: that Tiverton and Honiton and Wakefield voted for different things suggests, at least in terms of party brands and reputation, not an electorate drawn to something compelling but an electorate united in its rejection of something else.

The good people of those two constituencies, some 250 miles apart, were not voting for something but voting against something.

In other words, or more precisely Oliver Dowden’s words, people living in rural Devon are as ‘distressed and disappointed’ by the behaviour of the Prime Minister as those living in one of Yorkshire’s bustling urban cities.

Unite and level up, Mr Johnson promised the nation; the people who voted last night in those by-elections are certainly united; united in their rejection of this Prime Minister.

Going back to the now former Conservative Party Chairman Oliver Dowden’s clarion call for someone to step up and shoulder responsibility - whilst, coincidentally, the Prime Minister is 4,000 miles away posing for photographs - in Mr Dowden’s then role, it is he who is responsible for stepping up and explaining, win or lose, by-election results to the nation via national news outlets.

In resigning in the early hours, he was refusing to do that. Instead, Paul Scully, with respect, a more lightweight Minister you will struggle to find, was thrown to the wolves and duly torn to shreds.

So, if the party chairman is not willing to take responsibility, and the Prime Minister made sure he was half-way round the world so that he couldn’t possibly do so, the question persists: who is responsible for what is self-evidently the most urgent crisis facing the Tories since they came to power in 2010?

I am drawn to a maxim that I keep close to my heart: in order to know where you are going, you must understand where you’ve come from. And so let us look for a moment in the wing mirrors of this beleaguered leader.

Boris Johnson, a timeline of his time as Prime Minister:

August 2019: Boris Johnson prorogues Parliament in order to force through his ‘oven-ready’ Brexit deal. MPs condemn the prorogation as undemocratic. It is later deemed unlawful.

November 2020: Evidence has since emerged of Boris Johnson surrounded by revellers at multiple social gatherings which, at the time were illegal and such events around the country were being forcefully broken up by police officers, owing to the danger posed to life in the event Covid-19 was transmitted person to person. Mr Johnson is now the first ever sitting Prime Minister to be found to have broken the law. An investigation by senior civil servant Sue Gray stated: “The events investigated were attended by leaders in government. Many of these events should not have been allowed to happen. The senior leadership at the centre, both political and official, must bear responsibility for this culture.” That word again. Responsibility.

December 2020: When asked in Parliament about the illegal gatherings, Mr Johnson told the House: “All guidance was followed completely in Number 10.” He went on to add outside of the House: “all the evidence I can see is that people in that building have stayed within the rules.” They hadn’t, and he was there.

October 2021: Boris Johnson re-writes the parliamentary rules on standards in order to create a loophole for Owen Paterson to leap through in order to prevent himself being suspended from his role following an ‘egregious case of paid advocacy.’ Such was the horror at what Mr Johnson was trying to do in order to protect a colleague whose behaviour had fallen short of expectations that this was blocked and a screeching u-turn ensued.

December 2021: Boris Johnson’s Communications tsar Allegra Stratton quits, after footage emerged of her laughing and joking about the secret parties going on inside Downing Street, whilst tens of thousands were dying of Covid-19. She resigned in distress on her own doorstep in floods of tears on national television. Mr Johnson thanked her, without taking any responsibility for what had happened.

June 2022: The Prime Minister’s Ethics Advisor, Lord Geidt quits. At the time he felt there was a legitimate question over whether or not Mr Johnson broke ministerial rules - a resigning offence - with his antics at, and subsequent explanations of, what has now been dubbed Partygate. Mr Johnson later contemplates scrapping the ethics gatekeeping role altogether. Just to double check, that’s standards and ethics he wants rid of.

June 2022: The Prime Minister is taken by surprise when Royalist crowds gathered to pay thanks to Her Majesty The Queen at a St Paul’s Platinum Jubilee service spontaneously erupts into a chorus of boos and jeers at the arrival of Mr Johnson, hand-in-hand with his wife Carrie.

June 2022: Tory MPs force a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister. He lives to fight another day winning the vote 211 to 148 but, critically, 75 per cent of his own MPs not on his ministerial payroll said they had no confidence in his leadership.

June 24th, 2022: Conservative Party Chairman Oliver Dowden quits in the wake of humiliating by-election defeats in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. The Prime Minister is 4,000 miles away but in a memo sent back home he vows to carry on.

So what next for Boris Johnson and his Government?

Few people understand politics and power better than the distinguished Conservative peer Lord Barwell, formerly Theresa May’s chief of staff. He said that if Government MPs do nothing in response to the crushing defeats at the ballot box then the Tory party would be ‘sleepwalking to defeat at the next election.”

Wise words from someone widely respected in the party.

So, with Lord Barwells wisdom ringing in their ears after those two stinging defeats at the ballot box, what’s the outlook?

Rail workers on strike and the biggest teaching union making similar murmurings of discontent; even big business - the darlings of Conservatism - isn’t immune from the unease with British Airways staff at Heathrow voting to strike over the summer holidays, petrol costing over £2 per litre, energy bills soaring, food bills the same. Inflation at record levels. Interest rates chasing to keep pace.

So. What next? Well, Mr Johnson, as per previous, says he will plough on and MPs like Wolverhampton South West’s Stuart Anderson say this: “It was not a good night for us with the results that we have just had in the by-elections. Only opposition parties win when we are divided. We need to listen, learn and unite behind Boris Johnson for the good of the country.”

In essence: we have listened and we have learned, but we are going to continue with more of the same.