In her 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth has dealt with no fewer than 14 prime ministers, from Winston Churchill onward. Huge names of British politics like Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair.
But although relations with “my prime minister,” as the monarch refers to them, have not always been easy, there is only one among them that she is said to actively despise: the cynical, mendacious, disrespectful Boris Johnson—who, after leading Britain out of the European Union on the false promise of greater prosperity, has done his best to demean his office.
So the irony was almost too much to bear when one of Johnson’s closest allies appealed to his critics in the Conservative Party on Thursday to lay off him as the nation celebrates the queen’s platinum jubilee this weekend.
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Despite Johnson’s best efforts to bury the scandal, voters have been deserting the Tories because of “Partygate”—the fight over the illegal parties Johnson held at 10 Downing Street while the rest of the country was in COVID lockdown. That has raised the prospect of a backbench challenge to his leadership, which his cabinet allies are desperate to avoid.
Among them is Home Secretary Priti Patel, who used an interview with the Daily Mail as she toured the site of Thursday’s jubilee festivities to warn MPs not to undermine the mood of national celebration by attacking their boss.
“Events like this are about celebrating our country, our nation, our values, and our monarchy. This is about Her Majesty the Queen,” she said. “I think that’s where all the focus should be.”
She went on: “Just coming here, the mood, you can see the heart and soul of the nation will be lifted. This weekend is going to be all about the long-standing dedicated service that Her Majesty the Queen has given that nation. Everyone should rally behind that.”
A leadership challenge will be formally triggered when 15 percent of the parliamentary party—that's 54 Tory MPs—lodge letters of no confidence with the 1922 Committee, which represents the interests of backbenchers in Parliament. The committee’s chair, Sir Graham Brady, will not say how many have yet been lodged, but the mood is so feverish that some suggest Johnson’s allies have been asked to send letters in to Brady to trigger a premature confidence vote that Johnson could more easily survive.
In her Mail interview, Patel said: “This isn’t about a [candidates’] parade, or a contest, or letters. We need to concentrate on doing our jobs. Look at what is going on in the world right now, look at the challenges that we face domestically. We can’t ignore those.
“Writing letters is a sideshow, quite frankly, rather than focusing on the real challenges that we have to find solutions to.”
Johnson and his wife Carrie, him in a morning suit, she in a cerise-pink dress, joined the ranks of military dignitaries at Thursday’s Trooping of the Colour ceremony to mark the queen’s official birthday and paid tribute to her years of “selfless service.”
But despite Johnson’s obvious attempts to appeal to British nationalism—including the announcement this week that the U.K. would be going back to the old imperial measures of pounds and ounces and putting the crown sign back on pint glasses in the nation’s pubs—everyone knows that Elizabeth, a connoisseur of prime ministers, can see right through him.
