Tory MPs are uniting against the prime minister, but there are still too many dissatisfied factions for a serious leadership challenge
Boris Johnson, mulls one of the few figures to have served in every Tory cabinet since David Cameron’s to the present one, is like a “seafaring voyager from the ancient world” – adventurous, reckless, dominant and storm-tossed. Now, like a stranded mariner, he depends on external forces to bring the Conservatives’ ship of state back to safe electoral harbour.
The omens for his odyssey look bleaker by the hour. A shock resignation last night from Lord Frost, the PM’s trusted Brexit negotiator who looked poised to pull off a peace treaty with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol over the “political direction” of the government. For all the ritual courtesies about his departure being agreed earlier this month and inconveniently leaked to Sunday newspapers, Frost’s key gripe is clear. He disagrees with the leader he served as negotiator and later Cabinet member about “the current direction of travel” on Covid restrictions and believes that Johnson has fallen prey to a nexus of over-zealous advisers advising greater restrictions as Omicron spreads.
