Javid Sacked: Tories in Chaos
Sajid Javid has been brutally sacked as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the second most important political post in the land.
PM Johnson demanded that Javid get rid of his own advisers and take on lackeys and lickspittles from number 10 in their place. As Javid commented, “I was unable to accept these conditions. I don’t believe any self-respecting minister would accept such conditions, so therefore I felt the best thing to do was to go.”
Speaking in Manchester, Jeremy Corbyn said it had been a "record collapse of a government... Boris Johnson became prime minister in July. At that time, as far as I can remember, Philip Hammond was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
"We then had Sajid Javid [and] we've now got the third Chancellor of the Exchequer in less than six months. This is a government in chaos.”
Johnson has appointed Rishi Sunak, who nobody has ever heard of before, to what surely should be an important position. Rebecca Long-Bailey has been checking him out. He is a former Goldman Sachs banker who has backed:
· anti trade union regulations,
· tax cuts for big business,
· opposing tax avoidance clampdowns
· cutting tax for wealthiest.
She concludes, “The mask is slipping already, this isn’t a different kind of Tory government.” His predecessor Sajid Javid was making a fortune at Deutsche Bank selling derivatives in the middle of the financial meltdown in 2008. No change there, then.
Javid complained that leaders need to have “trusted teams that reflect the character and integrity that you would wish to be associated with. “ This is exactly what Johnson doesn’t want. He wants crawlers. John McDonnell concluded: “Dominic Cummings has clearly won the battle to take absolute control of the Treasury and install his stooge as Chancellor.”
He is right. Javid has frequently been humiliated and belittled by Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s sinister unelected adviser, and was widely known in Tory circles as ‘Chino’ - Chancellor in name only. Now even the title has been stripped away.
It is not for us to take sides in this spat between Tories. But we have previously pointed out Johnson’s bonapartist tendencies - his instinct to defy the rule of law and reduce Parliament as far as possible to a bunch of unthinking Tory cattle.
This dismissal is a reversal of Johnson’s previous promises. "I'm going to give you an absolutely categorical assurance I will keep Sajid Javid as my chancellor. I think he's a great guy, and I think he is doing a fantastic job." This shows you how much worth his pledges are.
Johnson’s government seemed completely secure, with a commanding majority. Yet beneath the surface are hidden tensions that will produce splits and crises.
