UK's Johnson looks beyond woes to decade at top

KIGALI－Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he aims to remain in power until the middle of the next decade, when he would be in his early 70s, despite calls for him to quit.

On June 6 Johnson survived a vote of confidence by Conservative lawmakers in which 41 percent 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.

The by-election defeats suggest the broad voter appeal that 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.

Johnson's government has been beset by difficult post-Brexit relations with the European Union, and Britain is in the midst of its deepest cost-of-living crisis in decades, with inflation at a 40-year high.

The former party leader Michael Howard said on Friday that it was now time for Johnson to go, and the 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," Johnson said 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.

The African nations of Gabon and Togo have been newly admitted into the Commonwealth group of nations, becoming the latest nations with no historic ties to Britain to enter the mainly English-speaking group headed by Queen Elizabeth II.

The 54-nation group of mostly former British colonies accepted Togo's and Gabon's applications for membership on the final day of its leadership summit in Rwanda.

Also in the spotlight has been Britain's controversial policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, which Prince Charles has described as appalling, according to UK media.

Agencies Via Xinhua