Ask yourself this. As Boris Johnson resigns after three years as Prime Minister, which clear principles underpinned his government? What did he believe, exactly?
First elected as an MP over twenty years ago in 2001 and elected as Mayor of London back in 2008, I for one still have absolutely no idea what Boris Johnson believes in.
And this ambiguity is the real reason why his government ended so prematurely. Not parties in Downing Street during lockdown, not poor handling of MP misconduct or party internal feuds.
No vision – Boris’ fundamental failing
Power comes from belief. Power comes from a vision. Power comes from other people who believe what you believe and are willing to fight to make it happen.
Not only did Boris Johnson’s reign end without a clear vision, it didn’t begin with one either.
He became Prime Minister in the first place not because of his own merit, but because of the demerit of others.
Burdened with a grossly incompetent Prime Minister in Theresa May on the one hand, and a spiteful anti-democratic Parliament seeking to overturn a referendum vote on the other, we faced government paralysis and potential civil unrest.
Boris Johnson was given the opportunity and the script to become Prime Minister in order to “get Brexit done”. And after the 2019 General Election, the deadlock was rightly broken and we left the European Union less than a year later.
But once the Brexit crisis had passed, where was the fundamental vision to shape the country for the better? There wasn’t one.
There were no principles or beliefs, only slogans. It was an unprincipled government by an unprincipled Prime Minister, cleaning up one mess only to then proceed to create another, repeatedly.
Unprincipled and un-conservative – Boris’ record
The destructive nationwide blanket lockdowns during the pandemic will go down in history as one of the most thoughtless and cowardly policies we’ve ever known during peacetime.
Adopting authoritarian rule as a result of government panic, indiscriminately violating everybody’s basic right to liberty rather than focussing on the vulnerable few, was immoral and as unprincipled as it gets.
Shutting down the economy and borrowing huge sums of money to pay people to sit at home for two years was short-sighted in the extreme. Businesses and jobs have been lost, public debt is now at its highest since the 1960s and inflation at its highest since the 1980s. We will be spiralling into more and more public and private debt for many years to come.
The result? Post-Brexit opportunities around greater economic liberation and prosperity squandered and a cost of living crisis for millions of families who won’t be able to afford it.
Chris Mendes, Foundation Party Leader
Meanwhile, like all Conservative governments, the Johnson government was quick to pretend it believed in lower taxes but was even quicker to raise them. Today we have the highest tax burden since the 1950s.
And after three more years of a so-called conservative government, misguided economically illiterate left-wing green ideology still dominates our energy policy.
Instead of pursuing the wealth of shale gas under our feet that would lower the cost of energy for millions, Johnson instead maintained a climate levy on businesses, which increases the cost of the energy they use and consumer prices as a result, required gas boilers to be replaced by fuel pumps set to cost households thousands, and subjected energy companies to an arbitrary windfall tax whilst expecting them to produce cheaper energy.
From national lockdown to economic ruin, this is the sort of track record I would expect if the Green Party formed a coalition with the Socialist Workers Party.
The result? Post-Brexit opportunities around greater economic liberation and prosperity squandered and a cost of living crisis for millions of families who won’t be able to afford it.
And worse, the Conservative Party will soon return with a new unprincipled and unconservative leader who will pretend to be the superhero we need to fix the mess they helped create.
But actually, this person, most likely Rishi Sunak, will be more of exactly the same – style over substance, except with none of the showmanship.
A fresh genuine alternative
It doesn’t matter which of the two main parties wins the next election, we will be stuck with a Prime Minister pretending to be all things to all people and standing for absolutely nothing in the process.
We need fresh new parties to challenge and offer principled government. The Foundation Party is here, with a vision of reduced top-down regulation of your life and greater bottom-up liberty and choice for you and your family, for your consideration.