In 2019, then-Prince Minister Boris Johnson created a scheme to ram Brexit through. His plot involved convincing Queen Elizabeth II to prorogue the government, basically shut down Parliament and tell everyone to go home. The situation was so politically unpopular and BoJo’s scheme was so unhinged, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled (months later) that the whole thing was unconstitutional and that BoJo lied to QEII when he convinced her to prorogue. Well, there’s a new book coming out about all of this – Out by Tim Shipman. The Times had excerpts from it and much of it is about BoJo’s scheme and how it fell apart. But there are some interesting stories about how QEII felt about BoJo, and how much Prince William and then-Prince Charles hated him too. Some highlights:
When the Supreme Court called the prorogue unconstitutional: The most awkward moment for Johnson came when he had to phone the Queen. After the verdict John Major, who helped bring the Supreme Court case and had been an adviser to Princes William and Harry, urged the prime minister to make an “unreserved apology” to the monarch: “No prime minister can ever treat the Queen this way.” Major reflected undiluted fury among senior members of the royal family and courtiers in the royal household about Johnson’s behaviour. “John Major is very, very close to the Queen,” said a Tory source with close links to senior royals. “The Queen has to do what she is told to do by the prime minister, but they did not want to prorogue parliament in these circumstances. Nobody trusts Boris.”
QEII’s punishment: The source said Johnson would never receive the order of the garter, the traditional honour for retired prime ministers, while the Queen was alive. The Queen’s reaction was actually more sanguine than some. She thought Johnson a roguish and comic figure and took the disaster in her stride. One senior royal aide characterised her approach as, “These things happen”.
Charles & William were pissed: The anger on the monarch’s behalf, however, from the Prince of Wales in particular, was intense. “Charles was absolutely furious,” a royal insider said. “He was outraged that Boris should treat the Queen like that. She wouldn’t ever say anything, but he was pretty robust in private.” The anger was shared by Prince William, whose private secretary was Simon Case, who had previously been in No 10. “I think that Simon Case wound William up,” a senior civil servant said.
Constitutionally, the Queen had no choice but to accept Johnson’s request to prorogue. But William’s aides let it be known that in his reign as king there would be “more private, robust challenging of advice” between the monarch and his prime ministers.
BoJo accused Charles of further interference: Further tensions between Charles and Johnson followed over his government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which Charles thought “appalling”. He feared it would mar the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Rwandan capital Kigali. At the summit Johnson privately took the heir to the throne to task for “sh–bagging” his flagship plan. “Did you actually criticise government policy?” he asked. Johnson told an aide that Charles replied: “Well maybe, inadvertently, without intention I may have said something.”
Charles also wanted to speak about Black Lives Matter: Charles revealed that he wanted to respond to the widespread fury about colonialism unleashed by the Black Lives Matter campaign, by acknowledging the evils of slavery. Johnson, despairing that even the monarchy had been captured by “woke” ideology, was blunt: “I wouldn’t talk about slavery if I were you, or you’ll end up having to sell the Duchy of Cornwall to pay reparations to the people who built the Duchy of Cornwall.” When Johnson emerged from this encounter he told Guto Harri, his director of communications, “I went in quite hard.”
Boris adored QEII, she did not feel the same way & she didn’t want him to oversee her funeral: Missing the chance to make the speech from the dispatch box by three days was exquisite torture. “He totally adored her,” said one former No 10 adviser. However, a Tory close to the royal household suggested mischievously that “Her Majesty wanted to hang on long enough to see Boris off the premises”. The courtier explained that the Queen’s final days had been happy ones. She had enjoyed a gathering of her family and treasured staff two evenings before her death. The courtier confided that when Boris Johnson was mentioned, the Queen, mischief in her eye, had said: “Well at least I won’t have that idiot organising my funeral now.” This, it seems, was said to amuse but it was a widely shared sentiment in the royal household.
That part about Boris challenging Charles is the most fascinating part to me – that Boris was pissed about Charles leaking sh-t about Boris’s dumb deportation plan and that implied threats were made about the Duchy of Cornwall. In some sense, they were both right and both wrong. Charles was right to publicly criticize Boris’s deportation plan, but Boris was right to remind Charles that the Windsors sit on a pile of stolen wealth from centuries of slavery and colonization. Now, do we think that QEII managed to hang on so that Boris wouldn’t organize her funeral? Nah. But it’s a little bit funny that everyone at the palace is like “oh, that’s exactly what happened.”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.