The next leader will be as much to blame for our crisis as the PM – no matter how they try to shimmy away from the crime scene
In most successful revolutions, there comes a moment when the dictator is ushered out of office by a powerful figure within their inner circle. During the Arab spring, the formula became familiar: a military commander would claim they could no longer stand by as a despotic president brutalised protesters. They would speak up, jettisoning their career for the sake of the nation, and would give a pious address about their love of country. Yet as the bitter aftermath of the Arab spring demonstrates, the person who deposes the dictator often helped to create them. They are not a saviour. In fact, they may be the next dictator.
The Tory party is now home to an entire cast of these protagonists, who all claim they did the right thing for the sake of the nation. Over the next few weeks, Tory ministers will do and say anything they can to launder their reputations and heap responsibility for the catastrophic failure of this government on the head of Boris Johnson alone. Their resignation letters and tweets have all followed the same treacly template – one that is sickening in its dishonesty, disgraceful in its resorts to the rhetoric of patriotism, insulting in its reach for excuses, transparent in its identical format.
Guardian Newsroom: The end of the Johnson era
Join our panel including John Harris and John Crace discussing the end of the Boris Johnston era in this livestreamed event tomorrow (12 July) at 8pm BST | 9pm CEST | 12pm PDT | 3pm EDT. Book tickets here
Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist
