Boris Johnson attempted to walk back his earlier vow to remain Prime Minister until “the mid-2030s,” insisting that he had been making a point about being focused on the “long-term challenges” facing the UK.
“What I’m saying is this is a government that is getting on with delivering for the people of this country and we’ve got a huge amount to do,” Johnson told reporters at the G7 summit in Bavaria, Germany, on Sunday morning.
Johnson underscored the need to get his country through the current “post-COVID-19” and “Ukraine-exacerbated” global inflationary pressures, as well as the crippling energy price spikes.
He touted his government’s “massive agenda of reform and improvement, a plan for a stronger economy, whereby we have to reform our energy markets, our housing markets, the way our transport networks run, our public sector – we’ve got to cut the cost of government.”
The British prime Minister emphasized that his golden rule was to “focus on what we are doing”.
This clarifying intervention came after Boris Johnson vowed to remain as UK Prime Minister past 2030 after fresh Tory backlash over the recent by-election double defeat.
After attending the Commonwealth summit in Kigali, Rwanda, Johnson was asked by reporters whether he intended to serve a second full term in office.
“At the moment I am thinking actively about the third term and you know, what could happen then… But I will review that when I get to it,” quipped Johnson, adding: “About the third term ... this is the mid-2030s.”
He continued, saying his team had “embarked on a massive project to change the government, of the constitution of the country, the way we run our legal system, the way we manage our borders, our economy.” “It’s going to take time. And I want to keep driving it forward,” insisted Johnson.
These remarks followed a series of statements by Johnson, who recently narrowly dodged a no-confidence vote over the “Partygate” scandal. The PM triggered indignation among Tory MPs by suggesting voters were tired of hearing about what he is “alleged to have done wrong”.
“If you’re saying you want me to undergo some sort of psychological transformation, I think that our listeners would know that is not going to happen,” Johnson told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
He also told Sky News that people wanted to hear less about the “things I stuffed up”.
In response to the interventions by Boris Johnson, an ex-cabinet minister and former ally described the PM as “completely delusional.” A senior MP from a “red wall” seat slammed Johnson as “showing increasing signs of a bunker mentality, and that never ends well.”
‘A Challenge Within Days'
Boris Johnson has been consistently batting away calls to step down amid the so-called “Partygate” row.
Earlier this month, 148 Conservative MPs expressed no confidence in Boris Johnson, just 32 short of the number required to force his resignation. Furthermore, after disastrous results of the by-elections on 23 June, with the Liberal Democrats claiming Tiverton and Honiton and Labour securing the “red wall” seat of Wakefield, some expected the PM to face a leadership challenge 'within weeks or even days, according to The Mail on Sunday The poll battering had prompted the dramatic resignation of party chairman Oliver Dowden on Friday, while fresh calls emerged for Boris Johnson to quit.
While under current rules another no confidence vote cannot be held for a year, rebel MPs have reportedly been planning to use elections to the executive of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers to unseat Johnson.
If a majority of anti-Johnson MPs were are elected to the executive, it could change the rules on leadership elections, allowing another vote of confidence in Johnson before June 2023.
Furthermore, according to Labour party insiders cited by The Sunday Times, half-a-dozen Tory MPs were already considering defecting. One candidate reportedly considering a run for Tory leadership was cited as telling the Daily Mail that a contest was likely to come soon, adding “We are talking weeks or even days, not months.”
Boris Johnson currently faces a probe by the Commons Privileges Committee into whether he misled MPs when he told them earlier in the year that no COVID-19 rules had been breached in No 10.
According to one cabinet minister, the findings of the Commons Committee might become a “tipping point”. “That would be of a different order, no PM can survive that,” he was cited as saying.
The committee is expected to report its findings by the autumn.
Meanwhile, MPs and Tory donors are starting to merge in behind Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat, as potential successors, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Health Secretary Sajid Javid and his predecessor Jeremy Hunt all expected to throw their hats into the proverbial ring, claimed UK media outlets.