A petition calling for former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to return to his role has gathered 10,000 signatures from Conservative party members and supporters in its first two days. Organised by the political news site Conservative Post, it comes just one day after a YouGov poll of Tory members found that 55% of members want current PM Liz Truss to resign, with a majority of 63% thinking Johnson would be a good replacement.
Support for Truss is definitely waning but the seeming majority pushing for Johnson’s return demonstrates that the Conservative party is quite literally spinning in circles. After U-turning on the key economic policies that Truss had promised to deliver on during her campaign, it now seems like the whole party is U-turning on her position as PM.
This would be the third Prime Minister in as many years, with none of the last four Prime Ministers making it through the full term of four years. Along with the change in Prime Ministers, the flurry of Cabinet shuffles accompanying them have left Britain with virtually no consistency in the face of an ever-worsening cost of living crisis, the prospect of an energy crisis this winter, and the lasting effects of Brexit.
Many in the UK are now calling for a general election, almost three years after the last one was held on December 12, 2019. Both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were chosen only by Conservative voters, and the pandemic and every other crisis since then has caused support for the party to fall.
2019 saw the Conservatives win a landslide majority but the exposure of senior Tories like Johnson, Rishi Sunak, and Matt Hancock being involved in affairs, illegal Covid parties, and much more besides could well result in a very different story if a vote were held this year.
At the moment, we can only sit back, watch, and wait to see if Liz Truss can outlive a lettuce. Yes, that’s a real experiment going on right now.
(featured image: Carl Court/Getty Images)
