BORIS Johnson has been called delusional by some of his own MPs after saying he planned to serve at least three terms as prime minister.
The statement, made to the media at the Commonwealth summit in Rwanda, would mean that Johnson was still in Downing Street in the 2030s.
It came just days after he suffered the worst by-election night of any prime minister in 30 years with the loss of two seats, one to Labor and one to the Liberal Democrats.
The LibDems overcame the biggest electoral hurdle in British history to turn a Tory majority of over 24,000 into a LibDem of 6,144 in Tiverton and Honiton in Devon.
Labor also recaptured the former Red Wall seat of Wakefield in West Yorkshire.
There was evidence in both pro-Brexit seats of tactical voting against the Conservatives.
In the wake of Thursday’s defeats, Tory party co-chairman Oliver Dowden stopped saying that someone had to take responsibility and that the party could not continue “business as usual”.
He pledged his loyalty to the party, but conspicuously omitted any support for the prime minister.
Former Conservative leader Lord Howard said it was time for Johnson to go because he had lost his ability to win votes.
The losses followed a series of scandals centered on Johnson’s own conduct, including Partygate, with breaches of the law in Downing Street during the Covid lockdown.
However, Johnson refused to take any responsibility for the by-election losses, suggesting they were predictable midterm cost-of-living protests, and said he was unwilling to undergo any kind of “psychological transformation.”
Johnson survived a confidence vote by Conservative MPs three weeks ago, so he would normally be protected from another vote for a year.
However, his inner critics are looking to change the rules to have one sooner.
Asked in the Rwandan capital Kigali if he would like to serve a second full term as prime minister, Johnson said: “Right now I am actively thinking about the third term and, you know, what might happen then.
“But I’ll review that when I get to it.
“We have embarked on a massive project to change the government, the constitution of the country, the way we run our legal system, the way we run our borders, our economy.
“All kinds of things we’re doing differently.
“We too, at the same time, are embarking on a colossal project to unite and level up… It’s going to take time. And I want to keep pushing it.”
A former cabinet minister who initially endorsed Johnson as prime minister told the Observer the comments were “completely delusional”, while a Red Wall MP said Johnson was “showing increasing signs of a bunker mentality, and that never ends.” right”.
Speaking to reporters at the G7 summit in Germany today if those comments were delusional, Mt Johnson said: “What I am saying is that this is a government that continues to deliver for the people of this country and we have an enormous amount to do.
“In the immediate future, we have to get people through the current global inflationary pressures, the exacerbated inflationary pressures in Ukraine post-Covid that people have, the energy price spikes that we have.
“But at the same time we have a massive reform and improvement agenda, a blueprint for a stronger economy, whereby we have to reform our energy markets, our real estate markets, the way our transportation networks work, our public sector. We have to reduce the cost of government.
“We have to make sure we grow our economy by reducing the tax burden on businesses and families and having better regulation.”
He said the “rule of thumb” was to “focus on what we’re doing” including tackling the cost of living, the “massive” plan for a stronger economy and “making sure the UK continues to deliver the kind of leadership in all the world”. world that I know our people want.”
Asked this morning if Johnson was serious about serving three terms, Northern Ireland Secretary Brand Lewis told the BBC’s Sunday Morning that he said: “Yes.”
He said it was a good thing that the prime minister was looking for long-term reforms.
Earlier, he told Sky News that he suffered “a bad set of results” on Thursday.
Asked if he agreed that the Tories had taken a huge beating at Tiverton and Honiton, Lewis said: “Yes, they were bad results for us. That sometimes happens in the medium term. There is no denying that it was a set of results that we have to watch carefully and learn from.”
He added: “What we have to do, as has happened before, where we have seen the by-election results go one way and then the next general election go a very different direction, you cannot extrapolate… election result in a general election result.
“It’s been shown over and over again that it doesn’t work that way.”
He said Johnson was “the right person” to lead the Tories to the next general election.
“I think he will do it successfully.”
He added: “What we have to do…is make sure that we’re not just learning from those results, where of course what we saw was a lot of people who previously voted Conservative this time around stayed home.
“We have to make sure that for the next general election we are encouraging those people to go out and vote for us.
“I think Boris Johnson is the person who can do that. He has shown that time and time again, where people have written him off, both before the London election and before the 2019 election, and then we have been able to come back and win, and successfully win. And I think he has the ability to do that.”
He said Mr. Johnson’s desire to look “long term” in leadership “has to be a good thing.”
Asked about the prime minister’s suggestion that he is thinking about the prospect of a third term, Lewis said: “What I see is somebody, and this is what I see when I work with the prime minister every day… someone who has that drive and enthusiasm for what we want to achieve for our country.
“And I think to see that kind of enthusiasm, and let’s be frank, someone who enjoys doing the work and wants and has plans for the country that they want to accomplish, to have that ability to look ahead, I think that’s a good thing. .
“We are often criticized in politics when we look at the short term, only the next day, the next election, the next vote.
“Actually, we have someone as Prime Minister who wants to take a long-term look at how to structurally improve our country for generations to come. That has to be a good thing.”
Reference-www.heraldscotland.com