(MENAFN- AzerNews)
By Trend
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday he aims to
remain in power until the middle of the next decade, despite calls
for him to quit, which would make him the country's longest
continuously serving leader in 200 years, Trend reports citing Reuters .
Earlier this month, Johnson survived a vote of confidence by
Conservative lawmakers in which 41% of his parliamentary colleagues
voted to oust him, and he is under investigation for intentionally
misleading parliament.
On Friday Conservative candidates lost two parliamentary
by-elections held to replace former Conservative incumbents who had
to step down, one after being convicted of sexual assault and the
other for watching pornography in the House of Commons.
The by-election defeats suggest the broad voter appeal which
helped Johnson win a large parliamentary majority in December 2019
may be fracturing after a scandal over illegal parties held at
Downing Street during coronavirus lockdowns.
Under Conservative party rules, its lawmakers cannot formally
challenge Johnson for another year, but overwhelming
dissatisfaction or resignations by a series of senior ministers
could make his position untenable.
Britain is also in the midst of its deepest cost-of-living
crisis in decades, with inflation at a 40-year high.
Former party leader Michael Howard said on Friday it was now
time for Johnson to go, and Conservative party chairman Oliver
Dowden quit after the by-election losses.
However, Johnson said he wanted to serve a third term in office
and remain as prime minister until the mid-2030s to give him time
to reduce regional economic disparities and make changes to
Britain's legal and immigration systems.
'At the moment I am thinking actively about the third term and,
you know, what could happen then. But I will review it when I get
to it,' Johnson told reporters in Rwanda on the final day of a
visit for a Commonwealth summit.
Asked what he meant, Johnson said: 'About the third term ...
this is the mid-2030s.'
Johnson must call Britain's next national election by December
2024, and would need a third election victory by 2029.
If he was still in office beyond early 2031, he would beat
Margaret Thatcher's record as the longest continuously serving
British prime minister since Robert Banks Jenkinson, the Earl of
Liverpool, who was in office from 1812 to 1827.
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