On September 6, 2022, two days before her death, Elizabeth II received Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at Balmoral, who had come to submit his resignation. A letter that “Her Majesty had the pleasure of accepting,” said the press release published shortly after by the palace. But it turns out that the word “pleasure” was not just a polite phrase: British journalist Tim Shipman reveals in his next book that it could not have been more accurate.
“At least that idiot won’t organize my funeral.”
In the first extracts from Out, How Brexit got done and the Tories were undonepublished by the Timesthe author recounts this evening which would prove to be one of the queen’s last. While she was surrounded by a few members of her family and some of her dearest collaborators, the author writes that “at the mention of the name of Boris Johnson, the queen, with a mischievous eye, said: ‘At least that idiot won’t organize my funeral.’
“The reflection was made in a joking tone, but revealing a feeling widely shared within the Royal Household” continues Shipman. A source both internal to the Conservative party and close to the Windsor clan assures in his book that “Johnson would never have been honored with the Order of the Garter, a traditional distinction for former Prime Ministers, during the lifetime of the queen.” The sign of stubborn resentment.
Trapped by “a rogue”
Elizabeth II would never have forgiven Boris Johnson for suspending Parliament for five weeks in the run-up to the Brexit referendum. This poker move by the Prime Minister, aimed at muzzling the opposition before the vote, has since been ruled illegal by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. However, constitutionally the Queen then had no choice but to accept Johnson’s request. A form of trap which, according to Shipman, made the sovereign and her heirs, Princes Charles and William, “furious”.
“She considered Johnson a comic figure, a rogue,” the author continues. Elizabeth II even let slip during an audience that he “would have been more at home on a stage than in politics”. Another anonymous figure in the Conservative Party assures that “Her Majesty wanted to hold on long enough to witness Boris’s fall.” She will have succeeded.
Despite the public tribute he paid to her upon the announcement of her death, the former Prime Minister continued to disrespect the sovereign even after her death. In his memoirs, a work published in October 2024, Johnson did not hesitate to reveal that the queen suffered from a “form of bone cancer”. A medical diagnosis never confirmed by Buckingham, nor by the death certificate which indicates that Elizabeth II died due to her “great age”.
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