Kigali, June 26 (BNA): British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he aims to stay in power until the middle of the next decade, despite calls for him to resign, making him the country’s longest running leader in 200 years.
Earlier this month, Johnson survived a confidence vote by Conservative Party MPs in which 41% of his parliament colleagues voted to oust him, and he is under investigation for deliberately misleading Parliament, Reuters reported.
Conservative party candidates lost Friday a parliamentary by-election held to replace former Conservative incumbents who had to step down, one after being convicted of sexual assault and the other for viewing pornography in the House of Commons.
Defeats in the by-election suggest that the voter allure that helped Johnson win a large parliamentary majority in December 2019 may be cracked after a scandal over illegal parties held in Downing Street during the coronavirus lockdowns.
Under Conservative Party rules, lawmakers cannot formally challenge Johnson for another year, but overwhelming discontent or resignations by a succession of senior ministers could make his position unacceptable.
Britain is also in the midst of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in decades, with inflation hitting a 40-year high.
Former party leader Michael Howard said on Friday it was time for Johnson to go and that Conservative Party chief Oliver Dowden had resigned after losing the by-election.
However, Johnson has said he wants to serve a third term in office and remain prime minister until the mid-1930s to give him time to reduce regional economic disparities and make changes to Britain’s legal and immigration system.
“Right now I’m actively thinking about the third period, you know, what could happen next. But I will review it when I get to it,” Johnson told reporters in Rwanda on the last day of a visit to attend a Commonwealth summit. .
Asked what he meant, Johnson said, “About the third period…that’s the mid-1930s.”
Johnson must call Britain’s next national election by December 2024, and he will need a third electoral victory by 2029.
If he is still in office after early 2031, it will break Margaret Thatcher’s record as the longest-serving British Prime Minister since Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, who was in office from 1812 to 1827.
No challenge, no change?
Johnson told reporters he did not expect to have to take on another internal challenge from within his own party, blaming the by-election defeats on media reports of months of shutting down parties at the heart of the government.
“People are tired of hearing things you’ve packed, allegedly filled with news, or whatever, this endless — perfectly legitimate, but never ending — of the news,” he said.
Earlier on Saturday, Johnson told BBC Radio that he rejected the idea that he should change his behaviour.
“If you were to say that you wanted me to undergo some kind of psychological transformation, I think our listeners would know that…it won’t happen.”
Johnson declined to comment on a report in The Times that he was planning to get a donor to finance a £150,000 ($184,000) tree house for his son at his state residence.
The story comes months after his party was fined for failing to accurately report a donation that helped fund the renovation of his Downing Street apartment.
“I won’t comment on things that don’t exist,” Johnson said when asked if he intended to use a donor’s money to build the treehouse.