Letter: Boris Johnson’s Departure Should Ring Alarm Bells

Published on: 10 Jun, 2023
Updated on: 10 Jun, 2023

Boris Johnson

From: Christian Holliday

former Conservative borough councillor

The manner in which Boris Johnson has been hounded from public office should worry everyone, regardless of political leanings.

Here was a leader who had won an 80-seat Conservative majority, the largest since 1987, and who successfully implemented the result of the 2016 EU referendum when no one else could.

Yet, the Remainer establishment simply would not have it. How dare a politician be so popular and successful without conforming to prescribed orthodoxy? He must be made an example of.

Their chance came when Boris Johnson walked in on a surprise birthday party in his honour, at which a birthday cake was present (but not consumed). Lame, I grant you, particularly when compared to, say, the Iraq war for instance, but against a giant of the political scene who had achieved so much and won so many votes and seats, it was all his enemies had to go on.

Rather than use force of argument or the ballot box, a way was found to drive him from office, using rules and procedures (a very ‘EU’ approach to achieving political goals) that would have ultimately triggered a by-election in his constituency. All this on the back of no actual evidence of wrongdoing.

This has been a shameless witch-hunt that has run and run certainly since referendum night 2016 and in reality years before. Labour presided over this “kangaroo court” in which members of the privileges committee had already expressed their views publicly and who had clearly already decided what the outcome should be.

Less than four years after winning the biggest Conservative democratic mandate in over 30 years that leader isn’t even an MP anymore. A sad day for democracy.

Brexiteers, be on your guard. This won’t stop with Boris. Labour must now surely be plotting a return to the EU should they ever regain power.

Responses to Letter: Boris Johnson’s Departure Should Ring Alarm Bells

Helena Townsend Reply

June 10, 2023 at 11:05 am

Absolutely delighted this rogue and liar has exited politics, now we just need the rest of them out.
David Smith Reply

June 10, 2023 at 11:07 am

Not a surprising letter from Mr Holliday – no doubt holding such views cost him his position at the local elections. I am glad he is no longer representing Burpham ward.
M Durant Reply

June 10, 2023 at 12:33 pm

Sir Bernard Jenkin, pro-Brexit and a Conservative, sat on the committee.

Boris is out because he lied, he was partying while people died. I was not able to see a friend of mine before she died in hospital, thanks to Boris.

I will never forget it. It wasn’t just him, there were a lot of other politicians doing the same, while they told lies to the nation. I think they should all be in jail.
Anthony Mallard Reply

June 10, 2023 at 5:26 pm

Mr Johnson was and I presume remains a duplicitous man, a disgrace to his constituency, party and to Parliament.

I well recall that he remarked, when he became an MP for Uxbridge, that he would lay down in front of the bulldozers if permission for a third runway at Heathrow was granted – what did he do when the vote happened – he found a reason to be out of the country to meet representatives from a country whom he had recently met, days previously, in London.

This is a minor example of his “say one thing and do another” to protect himself. His self-serving and self-preserving antics on this and so many other occasions brought the Mother of Parliaments into disrepute in the UK and, according to comments made at various times, a laughing stock around the world.

“I am disappointed that Mr Holliday holds the viewpoint that a multi-party and highly respected Committee of the House, where the Conservative party members are, incidentally, in a majority is a “kangaroo court”. It isn’t. It is democracy and in its work it has been open and transparent, something, of course, that local Conservatives don’t always understand.
Paul Robinson Reply

June 10, 2023 at 6:14 pm

Mr Holliday should remove those rose tinted spectacles. Boris is a liar. He lied during his time as a journalist because he couldn’t be bothered to do the leg work needed to produce an accurate report, and as we know he lied as a politician. I am a right leaning voter but I will never vote Conservative if there is any chance of Boris getting back in to power.

He wrote one story while he was European correspondent for The Telegraph about the British Army being called in to “blow up” an EU building that was found to contain asbestos.

After the article had been published, another writer pointed out to him that the last thing you would do with a building that contained asbestos is blow it up! His reaction? – “Good point”.
Mark Stamp Reply

June 11, 2023 at 12:30 am

If Mr Holliday thinks that the disgraced former prime minister successfully implemented the result of the 2016 referendum then I would ask why Nigel Farage (the leading cause of having the referendum in the first place) thinks the deal has been botched, why Jacob Rees-Mogg (at the time the Brexit opportunities minister) refused to implement the next tranche of border checks that are part of the deal because they would cause economic harm to the country and why Rishi Sunak had to sign the Windsor Framework to ease the friction of trade with Northern Ireland that the “oven ready” deal created and has still not been enough to get the unionists back into power-sharing (although there may be other factors at play there)?

This is not to mention the large number of leave voters who feel they were misled and think that the deal has been bad for the country.

Maybe this definition of success is why Mr Holliday was a member of a Conservative administration at GBC which had such successes as the Urban Village or implemented the hugely successful Local Plan.
Ben Paton Reply

June 11, 2023 at 1:35 pm

Mr Holliday confabulates two separate and incommensurable things:
1) the majority won at the last general election;
2) Mr Johnson’s conduct.

Mr Johnson won a large majority because the country was fed up that the result of the Referendum had not been implemented. He cut the Gordian knot and executed Brexit – not perfectly – but sufficiently.

Mr Johnson then muffed up his answers to the House of Commons about whether or not there were drinks parties.

Any system that overlooks whether statements ‘correspond with the facts’ is on a slippery slope to wholesale dishonesty – just like in Russia.

It is entirely proper – indeed absolutely essential – that Mr Johnson should be held to account for being “economical with the truth”, or dishonest. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the majority his party won at the last election.

Mr Johnson is the sole author of his misfortunes.

Mr Holliday displays the usual crooked thinking from the so-called “Conservative” party in Guildford – also demonstrated by the dishonest Local Plan that they put in place as a “poison pill” before they lost the last two elections. At this rate they do not deserve to be elected to run the local authority ever again.
Mike Jordan Reply

June 12, 2023 at 9:47 am

A truly extraordinary letter which I read open-mouthed. Boris Johnson is an amoral, lying chancer whose only priority was to become and remain Prime Minister. He wasn’t even a true believer in Brexit, only backing Leave because he thought it would further his own career.

He was unafraid to betray his friends (of which he has very few), his wives and his party and the damage he has caused will be with us for many years.

The “kangaroo court” that found he had misled the House of Commons was a properly constituted Parliamentary Committee with a built-in Conservative majority (just two Labour members) that he signed off on himself. It reached the only conclusion it could reach – that he misled the House. We watched him do it.
Paul Robinson Reply

June 12, 2023 at 4:05 pm

As someone pointed out today, he has not been hounded from public office. He has run away before before a Conservative majority House of Commons has voted as to whether any sanction should be applied to him. If a 10 or more day sanction was applied it would then be up to his constituents as to decide whether he remained an MP.

So rather than letting due process take its course he has decided not to risk it.
John Perkins Reply

June 12, 2023 at 4:24 pm

There is a great deal of personal animosity towards Johnson, some valid, some not. However, personal opinions are not generally of much use regardless of how deeply they are held.

All seven of the members of the “multi-party and highly respected Committee of the House” publicly declared, in advance of its report, that they believed Johnson to be guilty. Open and transparent it may be, though it is undoubtedly not free of an accusation that it pre-judged the case.

David Cameron promised and then delivered the referendum. If there was a “cause” then perhaps it was the almost 4 million people who voted for UKIP rather than its leader.

It is not Rees-Moggs’s job to cause economic harm to the country and it should be obvious why he would not want to implement border checks which did that.

Sunak did not have to sign the Windsor Framework – he chose to do so. At best it is no worse than what applied before, though it’s probably not quite as good, which why the Unionists remain unconvinced.

Christian Holliday was indeed a member of the unlamented Conservative GBC administration, but what exactly has that to do with his letter?
David Roberts Reply

June 12, 2023 at 5:33 pm

Johnson’s 80-seat win in 2019 was miraculous only in comparison with the Tories’ persistent inability since the 1980s, to get a secure majority in Parliament.

It’s not so miraculous that it was won against a Labour Party led by Corbyn. Just about anyone could have done it.
Peta Malthouse Reply

June 15, 2023 at 11:06 pm

I have to stand up for Harriet Harman, a respected lawyer and Parliamentarian.

It is claimed a tweet she made revealed she had already formed a view and should therefore refuse herself as chair of the committee.

Her tweet was made when Boris Johnson paid his £50 fine. She commented that it was an admission of guilt. It is exactly that… but she added that he had some questions to answer. Those questions of course were did he mislead the House.

The report was thorough. It took evidence from individuals and we learned from Boris himself that he relied on the advice of his press office.

At no time did he consult a lawyer during the time that he repeatedly denied rules were broken…at the dispatch box in answer to questions at PMQs.

Mr Holliday is very wrong and by unfairly criticising others he is simply trying to pretend that all parliamentarians are as bad as Boris. Well they are not and for me a little bit of confidence has been restored in the conduct of our democratic debate.
Dan Simmonds Reply

June 17, 2023 at 11:08 am

Just another sad apologist for Johnson and his disgraceful cabal.

How convenient to overlook that fact that what drove him from office was not a “witch hunt” of any form, but, ironically, the revolt and resignation of 57 ministers of his own party because of his conduct.

All this utter tosh about “sad day for democracy” is nothing more than the feeble-minded finally coming to the panic realisation that they have been exposed for the dishonest charlatans that they are.
Tony Grainger Reply

July 4, 2023 at 12:43 am

Christian Holliday’s letter is excellent. It is an absolute exemplar of just how out of touch and morally bankrupt this Tory Party and its apologists are, and serves as a nice little reminder how richly they deserve to be booted out en masse at the next election, save apathy creeps in.

Well done on this public service well performed!