So Boris Johnson is going – but not quite yet. Things might get better…
Boris Johnson is expected to announce later today that he’s resigning as Conservative Party Leader but intends to stay on until the autumn until a new one is elected. Who will, barring further UK political earth tremors, be the next prime minister.
Business leaders across the board will surely welcome this as the UK’s long-awaited recovery from the pandemic disappears rapidly over the horizon. A non-functioning government, living from one daily crisis to the next, is the last thing the country needs faced with rampant inflation and a war in Ukraine that seems to be costing the West just as much as the aggressor Russia. And the so-called “Brexit dividend,” Johnson’s legacy, is still to make an appearance.
A new Tory leader and PM will, one hopes, seek to come to a more friendly and constructive relationship with the EU. The current “arrangements” are an impediment to trade with the UK’s biggest market and Johnson, who has consistently set out to rile the EU, is the biggest impediment to any such improvement.
Somehow or other a peace deal needs to be reached over Ukraine before the winter or the current cost of living crisis will get worse. To cap it all new variants of Covid are surging in the UK.
The next IPA Bellwether Report of marketers’ intentions will surely show marketing budgets being slashed across the board and the larger economic picture shows a recession is now more likely than not.
Johnson’s going – and he ain’t actually gone yet – will help matters if someone sensible takes over. Given the current state of the Tory party that’s hardly a certainty.
Update
Well they didn’t, not for Boris anyway. Here’s Burger King and BBH adding insult to injury.