Boris Johnson loses his seat... in 2017

[Tamar]

The recent by-election in Uxbridge made me think this could be interesting to think about.

When Boris Johnson was trying to get back into Parliament in 2015, the rumour mill tied him to quite a few seats. One of them was Kensington, but then-MP Malcolm Rifkind insisted he wanted to stay on, so Johnson went for Uxbridge, while Rifkind was eventually forced to step down over an unrelated scandal.

But what if Rifkind had just retired, or if the sting that brought him down had happened earlier? Just two years later, Kensington was famously a shock Labour gain. Now, a lot of that was down to the MP who eventually did succeed Rifkind making herself so unpopular locally that even many members of the local Conservatives refused to vote for her. But equally, Johnson would probably have struggled with the many Tory Remainers in that seat. What if he ended up losing to Labour? Apart from being a rare 'Portillo moment' that actually would be on the same scale as the original Portillo moment, how would politics develop with Johnson out of Parliament and humiliated, instead of being able to swoop in, take over from Theresa May, and eventually win in 2019?

 

[Charles EP M.]

That's a good question when Johnson so quickly became the king over the water; any other MP going for the PM-in-waiting role has to fight for it, leaving friction afterwards. May could limp on until 2022 (though May with a minority government going through covid, hoooo boy).

Corbyn's Labour claiming Johnson's scalp is also a big deal. Now 2017 isn't just better than expected, it took out a Tory legend. Good for him in keeping control of the party, and May not being Borised for two years could help there (she's not a complete damp squib of a foe). And then there's 2020 for him....

Johnson likely benefits. It's a humiliating end but he can recover as a famous raconteur and symbol of an era, there's no covid and partygate and dodgy comms and Doms to wreck his popularity

 

[Oppo]

This has to be good news for Farage and the Brexit Party in 2019.

 

[Charles EP M.]

This has to be good news for Farage and the Brexit Party in 2019.

Possibly not, without Johnson to rally the harder Brexiteers then May might have got her deal through and then he's falling into irrelevance faster; if she still can't and topples, that'd mean a hard Brexiteer has replaced her and if they still call a 2019 election as a way to get a Brexit deal through, you have the same problem Farage had in 2019 that his party's going to be seen as getting in the way of an attempt to Get Brexit Done.

 

[EvilSpaceAlien]

That's a good question when Johnson so quickly became the king over the water; any other MP going for the PM-in-waiting role has to fight for it, leaving friction afterwards. May could limp on until 2022 (though May with a minority government going through covid, hoooo boy).

May staying on as leader through covid could be pretty interesting, unless her government is still toppled over brexit beforehand which doesn't seem unlikely considering the circumstances. But if she sticks around long enough she might even be able to actually run a campaign based on doing a decent job of managing covid and call an election in 2021 whilst the government's polling figures are still boosted by a successful vaccine rollout. A "strong and stable" campaign that actually has a chance of working to some degree.

It'd also be interesting to see how a loss to May in such a scenario would impact Labour, given that the loss may not have been as massive as OTL 2019 or that brexit wouldn't have been as prominent in the campaign. So the frontrunner in the leadership election to succeed Corbyn could be someone completely different from Starmer.

 

[Tamar]

Possibly not, without Johnson to rally the harder Brexiteers then May might have got her deal through and then he's falling into irrelevance faster; if she still can't and topples, that'd mean a hard Brexiteer has replaced her and if they still call a 2019 election as a way to get a Brexit deal through, you have the same problem Farage had in 2019 that his party's going to be seen as getting in the way of an attempt to Get Brexit Done.

Maybe, maybe not - an even more unsettled Tory party could see Farage win Peterborough. Do Farage's backers still drop him if he's winning by-elections and the Tory PM is someone other than Johnson?

Might also be worth going through that leadership contest, because there won't be a frontrunner as strong as Johnson. Some or all of the hard Brexit candidates (Gove/Javid/Raab/McVey/Leadsom) presumably get a shot in the arm here, and someone who didn't bother IOTL might stand, like David Davis or Mordaunt or Gavin Williamson.

Also not impossible we see a Labour leadership challenge if Farage takes Peterborough - there was a rumour that Thornberry was planning one if that happened.

 

[Time Enough]

Also not impossible we see a Labour leadership challenge if Farage takes Peterborough - there was a rumour that Thornberry was planning one if that happened.

I read @Comisario discussing about that. I believe she was quite ready to go, I do wonder if she would have more of a chance compared to the Chicken Coup.

 

[Comisario]

I read @Comisario discussing about that. I believe she was quite ready to go, I do wonder if she would have more of a chance compared to the Chicken Coup.

One of those lesser-explored what ifs. If - and it’s a big if - Thornberry won on the platform of Fully Automated FBPEism then the next election would be… a nightmare for Labour beyond OTL.