The ejection of Boris Johnson from Downing Street today proves that the UK has not gone the way of Donald Trump’s United States, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary or Narendra Modi’s India. For all our faults, the strongman model of leader ends in farce rather than fascism here.
Liberal critics ought to be big enough to concede that Conservative MPs – more than any opposition party, movement or institution – saved us from populist authoritarianism. No doubt they did so for impure and self-interested reasons, but this is politics and it is deeds – not motives – that matter most.
Johnson’s failure to impose his will on his parliamentary party was his greatest mistake. He only half understood that the strongmen, who dominate so much of the world, make it their first task to ensure that they have control of their parties.
They grasp that enemies within are the greatest danger. Because they know the leader and his party intimately, they can expose failures and betrayals more effectively than any opponent.
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