Speaker 1: There are only so many major political events globally each year, and we have one
that is transpiring right now.
The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson of the Conservative Party, colloquially known
as the Tories, has announced that he's going to resign.
His party has lost confidence in him.
It has been humiliation after humiliation.
And up until the last moment, Boris Johnson was saying resign, why?
No, why would I resign?
And he has now resigned or he will resign once a replacement is found.
A very good report about this from the Associated Press.
Britain's Boris Johnson resigning as prime minister amid scandal.
This is another Trumpist type.
Whose political run is, at least for now, ending in completely humiliating defeat.
Of course, you know, pending what happens with Trump in 2024, there may be more written
in the Trump story, but this is another Trump in type who is getting humiliated out of office.
Prime Minister Boris.
Boris Johnson announced his resignation Thursday amid a mass revolt by top members of his government,
marking an end to three tumultuous years in power in which he brazenly bent and sometimes
broke the rules of British politics.
Months of defiance ended, almost with a shrug as Johnson stood in ten Downing Street and
conceded that his party wanted him gone.
Let's look at a bit of that announcement.
And yeah, I the AP very accurately saying it was months of defiance and this sort of
faux principled, indignant defiance of resign.
I am here to do a job for the people of the.
Yeah, I guess I'm gone.
No, no, no.
Unidentified: Good afternoon.
Thank you.
It is clearly now the will.
Speaker 2: Of the Parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of
that party and therefore a new prime minister.
I have agreed with Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of our backbench MPs, that the process of
choosing that new leader should begin now and the timetable will be announced next week.
And today appointed a cabinet to serve, as I will, until a new leader is in place.
So I want to say to the millions of people who voted for us in 2019, many of them voting
conservative for the first time.
Thank you for that incredible mandate.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
I mean, the message should be to those who voted for the Tories for the first time.
You're probably never going to do it again.
Speaker 2: The biggest conservative majority since 1987.
The biggest share of the vote since 1979.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
So there it is.
Boris Johnson resigning in shame.
A little bit more from the Associated Press article.
The brash 58 year old who took Britain out of the EU and steered it through COVID and
the war in Ukraine was brought down by one scandal too many, this one involving his appointment
of a politician who had been accused of sexual misconduct.
Now, I have to tell you, in reading through this, Johnson is a sort of British version
of Trump in many ways, not just the hair, the kind of brash, never apologize type nature
and, you know, the sort of pseudo right wing stuff.
Yeah.
But I have to tell you, at this point, American politics has fallen so far, like into the
toilet, for lack of a better term.
Speaker 2: People are flushing toilets ten times, 15 times.
Speaker 1: American politics are so in the toilet that if Trump had done the exact same
things Johnson did, I don't know that it would have been even a fraction of the big deal
that it became in the UK.
The messiest of prime ministers did not leave cleanly, the article says.
Johnson stepped down immediately as Conservative Party leader, but said he would remain as
prime minister until the party chooses his successor.
The timetable could be announced next week.
From what I'm reading, we could be talking about months during which it's a sort of lame
duck by by self designations situation there.
He could be there for months.
Still, many in the party wanted him gone before then.
His government has been shredded by scores of resignations, and there's a long, long
list of those.
Johnson clung to power for two days, defiantly telling lawmakers Wednesday he had a colossal
mandate from voters massive dumps of votes.
He had guys and intended to get on with the business of government.
But he was forced to concede defeat Thursday after one of his closest allies, newly appointed
Treasury chief Nadhim Zahawi, publicly told him to resign for the good of the country.
Look at these numbers.
About 50 cabinet secretaries, ministers and lower level officials had quit the government
over the past few days, often castigating the prime minister for his lack of integrity.
So a very interesting and big story, the real the most relevant question arguably globally
about this resignation is, okay, so you've replaced Johnson with someone less cartoonish,
but does the UK's positioning in geopolitics change on any major issue?
Does the trade relationships change in any major way as a result of this?
No, probably not.
Does the British position on the Ukrainian defense against the Russian invasion change?
No, probably not.
And so it is a very it's a personally scandal ridden individual who's now going to be replaced.
But there's really no reason to think that in any substantive capacity, the UK's geopolitical
positioning is going to change.
And you could say, well, that's a good thing or that's a bad thing, or stability is good,
but actually change would be good because the UK has become much more right wing than
many of us on the left would like to see.
We'll have to see where the dominoes sort of fall as far as that goes.
But this is primarily a personal scandal with within the context of the Conservative Party
who will now choose a new leader and subsequently there will be a new prime minister.
Now, there could be follow on effects at the time of the next election.
And depending on what happens within the United States in terms of the midterms in 2024, you
could certainly see a shifting dynamic in the relationship between the UK and the U.S.
and in the UK's position and globally.
None of that is happening right now.
This is Johnson is out.
He will be replaced other than again this sort of like cartoonish nature of Johnson,
I don't anticipate, based on everything I'm reading right now, that there will be any
radical or substantive changes, certainly to our relationship with the UK, but not a
good couple of.
Days for Boris Johnson and very much like Trump, defiant until the final moment with
Trump, it was, well, making every claim about how he was going to stay in power because
he really won and then just quietly leaving, not even going to the inauguration with Boris
Johnson for weeks and weeks remaining indignant about, well, what do you mean, resign?
Two days.
Even when it was clear the pressure was overwhelming, saying, why would I resign?
And then I'm out and we'll see what the next
step is.