On Monday evening, the Prime Minister faced a Vote of No Confidence. Historically, these events are usually the beginning of the end for leaders, even when the Prime Minister is victorious. After a dramatic day in Westminster, Boris Johnson won the vote, but only after 148 of his own MPs voted for him to go. Just for perspective, this is one of the worst results a sitting Prime Minister has ever received in a No Confidence Vote. It means that 41% of his own colleagues don’t think he is fit to lead.
It’s easy to think that the drama in Parliament is just a political game which has no consequences outside of the Westminster bubble, but sadly that is not the case. The Conservative Party’s internal problems become the country’s problems. When they are without ideas and without competent leadership, the country is left without the action it needs to solve the biggest issues of the day. We have seen this through the current cost of living crisis, where Conservative incompetence led them to vote against Labour’s policy of a windfall tax, before accepting the exact same policy the very next week. Their division and delay directly hurts the country.
This why when people talk about politicians resigning, they often say that they are ‘doing the right thing’. If political leaders can’t command the respect of their own party, they have a moral obligation to move out of the way. We don’t have time for internal power battles and clashing egos, politicians have a job to do.
Every single day I hear from people across Tameside who are rightly fed up. After 12 years of Tory Government, living standards are at their worst since the 1950s, and the cost of living is soaring. It’s been one failure after another, and the longer that the Prime Minister clings on to power and delays the inevitable, the longer we will be left without any viable national leadership.
Ultimately, this all boils down to what kind of country you want to see. At the moment, we have a government that is chronically out of touch, and seemingly shifting from crisis to crisis.
Britain deserves a leader who has a vision to make the nation a fairer, healthier, and more prosperous place to live. In the aftermath of the pandemic, we have a real opportunity to build a brighter future, that opportunity must not be squandered.