After the "Resignation"

Boris Johnson is simultaneously gone but not gone. He's resigned but hasn't resigned. He's Schrödinger's Prime Minister. But one thing isn't ambiguous about his status: the longer he stays on, the greater the damage inflicted on the Conservative Party and the chances of his successor. Consider, for example, Johnson's reasons for not quitting immediately. First, the official reason. Downing Street was briefing that he has agreed with Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee, he would stay on until October. An untrue claim. Johnson also said he would do his duty by the British people until the end. And then we have what might be the real reason: the lavish wedding anniversary bash the Johnsons have planned in at Chequers. Smacks of the time when Johnson squatted in One Carlton Gardens, the Foreign Secretary's London residence, after he flounced out of Theresa May's cabinet.

The problem is Johnson's staying on only multiplies the points of pain his forcing from office was supposed to avoid. One of the main reasons why Johnson submitted to pressure was because the bulk of the parliamentary party went on strike. With a third of government jobs vacant and, presumably, not enough people willing to fill them as he frantically rang around last night, government threatened to seize up and Johnson could no longer rule. Don't ever let a Tory tell you collective action doesn't work. But having made a song and dance of resigning, would the obscure and barely-heard-of getting their name on the Sky News ticker for putting the boot in go back to their jobs for the summer - and make them look like utter fools?

There's a more serious point for the party as well: how Johnson's staying on can only entrench divisions. Most of the parliamentary party want him gone yesterday - helped by Johnson's dismissive turn in his resignation statement against his critics and usurpers. A rump - mostly loyalists - are happy for their anointed one to stay. This can only cause more tension, more bad blood, and more dysfunction as this alignment becomes sublimated through the Tory leadership contest to come. Who's going to be the custodian of Brexit? Who will be the champion of the (barely existent) levelling up wheeze? Who's going to traipse around the world stage affecting best buddyship with Volodymyr Zelenskyy? And who will affect to be the most loyalist of the loyal to the departing Johnson? The initial rounds of the leadership contest, due to take place next week, are sure to be messy.

And then there it the more dangerous issue: Keir Starmer's threatening to make political weather. For once, he has approached their crisis in a way guaranteed to maximise Tory pain and Labour advantage. For one, he's made it clear that Johnson was gestated, enabled, and supported by the Tory party. Rightly everyone, even those who began the avalanche of resignations, are tarred with the same brush. The problem isn't Johnson the bad apple but the Conservatives per se - an attack line that has been severely lacking from the front bench until very recently. Second, he's argued that it's unacceptable for Johnson to stay on given the corrupt practices, sleaze, and not to mention the sexual predator he brought into the heart of government. Again, very strong language for Starmer, but rhetoric backed by the promise of action. He's threatened to table a vote of no confidence in the Commons and that could prove doubly painful. Do Tory MPs rally around a Prime Minister they've just denounced as unacceptable and unsuitable, or vote for a general election they've done no preparation for, have no leader, and would almost certainly lose given the shifting tectonics of Tory support? Given the choice, it can only be the former - with all the agonies that entails.

It's fitting that as the Johnson moment has met its denouement, it comes dragging fresh crisis in its wake. It could not be happening to a nicer party.

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