Mila Hughes, Coventry Socialist Party
In December 2021, Boris Johnson told the House of Commons that all gatherings organised in 10 Downing Street ensured that Covid rules and guidance were followed at all times.
These events resulted in 183 fines for raucous boozing and partying, at a time when the rest of us were told we couldn’t see our families and friends. As a result of the Tories putting profit over our health, thousands died. Rather than face the music, Johnson has resigned as an MP, throwing a hand grenade into an already fracturing Tory party as he goes.
The Parliamentary Privileges Committee report, which recommended Johnson be symbolically suspended for 90 days and his parliamentary pass rescinded, was voted through by MPs on Monday 19 June. The report includes details of how he deliberately misled the public, parliament, and how he intimidated cabinet members and individuals involved in internal investigations.
Johnson’s resignation letter accused Sunak of no longer leading “a properly Conservative government”, while Tory MPs in the cabinet shot back at Johnson, accusing him of ‘mutiny’.
The aftermath of the report shows how truly weak and divided this Tory government is. Rishi Sunak couldn’t bring himself to vote either way on the report, alongside 224 other cowardly Tory MPs! 118 Tory MPs voted for Johnson to be punished, while only seven voted against.
These Tory MPs make up a government that is making us pay for the cost-of-living crisis and clamping down on workers fighting back, attacking the right to strike. Split open in multiple ways, the Tories can be beaten if we get organised and fight back.
But working-class people desperate to kick out the Tories and their pro-rich policies won’t find an alternative in Keir Starmer’s Labour. Starmer has been selling himself to the bosses as a man who will continue to act in their interests, only without the mayhem of Tory infighting. Already in the last few weeks his pledges on climate change investment and childcare have been thrown out because the ‘markets’ aren’t favourable!
We need political representation of the working class to fight back against this rotten system and its rotten representatives in parliament. A new mass workers’ party armed with a socialist programme. So we can fight for a world where there isn’t one rule for us and another for them.
