A zombie government defending a zombie union

At the time of writing, an important caveat there, Johnson is still Prime Minister, but by Wednesday evening no fewer than 38 members of his government had resigned including the senior cabinet ministers Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid and Michael Gove. Johnson may cling to power for a while longer, but by this time he is a zombie Prime Minister leading a zombie government, defending a zombie union. They are like flies that have been doused in fly killer, noisily and angrily buzzing and whirling away, but they are politically already as good as dead. When all you’ve got left are Nadine Dorries and Alister Jack, you’re as well locking yourself in your bedroom with a ton of cocaine and the soundtrack of an Aberdeen nightclub. Allegedly that’s what works for Michael Gove.

Johnson is not the resigning type, taking responsibility for his actions is alien to his nature. According to the Whitehall correspondent for the Mirror, one of his Conservative sources tells him that not even if the 1922 Committee changes the rules to allow another confdence vote and he loses, he still would refuse to resign. Instead he would claim that he has a personal mandate from the 14 million who voted Conservative in the last General Election and threaten to force a General Election, but not before deselecting all those who had turned against him. Johnson is certainly selfish and self-centred enough to blow up the Conservative party before giving up power.

As Johnson was making his delusional appearance before the Commons Liaison Committee on Wednesday afternoon, he was asked by Conservative veteran Bernard Jenkin if he would dissolve Parliament in an effort to save himself, Johnson refused to say that he wouldn’t. It’s unclear just how plausible that threat is, it’s not at all certain that Johnson could force an election given that the Tory turkeys will not want to vote for Christmas, but all any supporter of Scottish independence can say is ha and indeed, ha ha. A General Election now could have historic consequences, it could see the end of the Tory Party and Scotland vote for independence. Conservative MPs put Johnson in office in full knowledge of his greed, lies, and selfish deceit, it would only be fitting if Johnson’s last act was to destroy them and their so called union. That’s karma in action.

Scottish Tory MP Andrew Bowie tweeted on Wednesday afternoon that he had again written to the chair of the 1922 Committee to ask for another vote of confidence on Johnson’s leadership, despite saying after the last vote just three weeks ago that the Conservatives need to focus on the issues facing the country and not internal fights within the Conservative party. Nice to see that a Scottish Tory MP recognises that people can change their minds and have another vote. But not you Scotland, not you. Does anyone want to remind him that that was a once in a year vote. At this juncture it seems appropriate to remind Bowie and his Scottish Conservative colleagues of their own words , “You can’t just keep having votes until you get the result that you like. Oh the irony. It’s amazing just how much things change in three weeks, never mind eight years.

By tea time the threshold for triggering another vote of confidence had been reached and the 1922 Committee was preparing to change the leadership rules so that another confidence vote could be held as early as the beginning of next week.

While politics watchers were transfixed by the clownfall of Boris Johnson, in what may prove to be one of his last acts as Prime Minister, the Prime Law-breaker (at least at the time of writing, by this time tomorrow he might be just the law-breaker) wrote to Nicola Sturgeon to formally refuse a Section 30 order. He even had the brass neck to reference Ukraine in his missive of colonial domination and the unmitigated gall to insist that “our shared priorities must be to respond effectively to the global cost of living challenge, to support our NHS and public services as they recover from the huge disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to play our leading part in the international response to Russian aggression in Ukraine.” This from a man whose entire attention and energies right now are focused on saving his own miserable skin.

The truth is, it no longer matters, whether Johnson consents or not, the question that occupied Scottish politics for the past year or so, “What if Johnson says no?” is now an irrelevance. It’s an irrelevance because Johnson’s time in office now has a shorter life expectancy than a carton of milk left out in the sun on a hot day, so it will be a decision for his successor to take. But even that is irrelevant, because the First Minister’s announcement last week setting out the route to a lawful vote on independence changed the game. There will either be a lawful referendum with or without the consent of a Conservative PM, or at the next General Election the pro-independence parties will be seeking a mandate for independence, by which time the union as it has been conceived for generations will be legally dead and the British nationalist parties will have lost all control over the process, and have been left trying to defend a UK in which democracy in Scotland can be overruled by parties which have not won an election in Scotland.

A delegation of senior Conservatives met with Johnson after his appearance before the Commons Liaison Committee in order to tell him that the game is up and that it is time to leave. Priti Patel was also among the contingent, although she had not been seen to enter Number 10 via the front door. That’s because she had adopted her form as a bat and flown down the chimney. It’s not clear if Patel has joined the delegation in order to tell Johnson to go, or if she plans to bite them all in the jugular and suck out their life force so she can offer it as a sacrifice to Cthulhu in thanks for him devising her Rwanda policy.

By 8pm the ITV News deputy politics editor Anoushka Asthana was tweeting that her sources had told her that Johnson is absolutely defiant and is not going to resign. She said that they had told her Johnson “put his 14 million mandate on the table.” He’s threatening that if they force him out he will force a General Election. This was always always how it was going to end – the most shocking thing is that anyone is surprised. The Conservatives created a monster, and now they are being consumed by him. We’re going to need a smaller violin.

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