![After 50 years in politics, Biden's reluctance to give up the Oval Office is understandable](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/07/19/TELEMMGLPICT000385967324_17214107621050_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqS8LvVGaCov9_zEWH2d7j7SLJao8McaI0EbJtNKyKPK4.jpeg?imwidth=680)
How to get rid of your boss when he’s the leader of the free world
From ‘undefeated’ Thatcher to ‘frail’ Biden, persuading the person in charge of a nation that their time is up can be a tough sell
![After 50 years in politics, Biden's reluctance to give up the Oval Office is understandable](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/07/19/TELEMMGLPICT000385967324_17214107621050_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqS8LvVGaCov9_zEWH2d7j7SLJao8McaI0EbJtNKyKPK4.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Clamour is building for Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. Barack Obama is reportedly the latest senior Democrat to give voice to what many will have been saying for months: that Biden is too frail, physically and mentally, to fight an election, let alone do the world’s most important job for another four years.
As clear a decision as it might be those not in politics, encouraging him to stand down is easier said than done. Whilst the UK PM can lose a confidence vote, the US Constitution means you cannot remove a sitting president without recourse to the 25th Amendment. Biden has been a senator since he was 30. After working his whole life to be president, it is understandable that he would be reluctant to give up the gig, especially in the face of such a brash opponent as Donald Trump.
Most political exits, in the US and elsewhere, come after an obvious calamity, usually an election defeat. There was no question about Rishi Sunak’s course of action after Labour’s landslide win earlier this month, even if the exact mechanics of him being replaced still remain up in the air. Just as it was no surprise to see David Cameron at the lectern outside Number 10 the morning after the Brexit vote. Where it is less clear is when there is no catastrophe, just a gradual shift in mood.
British politics has provided several examples in recent years. For Tony Blair, it was opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Theresa May was undone by her inability to get her Brexit bill through. For Boris Johnson, it was the Chris Pincher scandal rounding off frustration over Partygate. Depending on who you ask, Liz Truss was done for by her eccentric mini-budget which spooked the markets, or a left-wing conspiracy of bond traders and the Bank of England. This week, the Welsh First Minister Vaughan Gething resigned only four months after taking the job having become embroiled in controversy over a £200,000 campaign donation from a man convicted of environmental offences. He went down fighting, saying: “I regret that the burden of proof is no longer an important commodity in the language of our politics.”
In each instance, the mood had slowly turned on the leaders, making it impossible for them to govern. But not all are alike. Johnson left with a defiant “Hasta la vista,” making it clear he thought he disagreed with the outcome. For May, it was a case of running out of road.
![Theresa May](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/07/19/TELEMMGLPICT000386117582_17214066257820_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgsaO8O78rhmZrDxTlQBjdLdu0TL-Cg_AMOUqySXmFgU.jpeg?imwidth=350)
“By the time Theresa resigned she still had a mandate to continue because she had won a confidence vote, which ought to have protected her for the rest of that year,” says Paul Harrison, her former press secretary. “But when it’s clear that you don’t have the confidence of your party, mistakes get magnified. The ebbing away of individual bits of support seems more significant than it would otherwise. Rumblings of discontent become more important. It’s hard to measure, but from the inside you get a sense of something gaining popular momentum. It’s visceral.
“As an adviser, a lot depends on the mood of the principal,” he adds. “In Theresa’s case, there was a consensus that we had tried the things that were available to try. I imagine it’s more difficult if the principal wants to continue at all costs. Then, if you’re an adviser and you don’t agree, that puts you in a difficult position. But in our case there was a fairly settled view that we had run out of road.”
“It’s like a herd movement,” says a senior advisor to another recent Prime Minister. “Once the herd has moved, the herd has moved. Deep down, the leader knows there’s nothing you can do to reverse it. In a way, as the closest advisors you can be quite slow on the uptake. It’s vibes-based politics. But in my experience the exit has always been pushed by outside forces. Because to a certain extent your job is to keep the leaders sane. Leaders need a slightly delusional team to keep them standing. They’re politicians, they know they’re time is up, but they have to give a speech so your job is to keep them up. People often forget the human element. The whole world thinks Biden is not going to run, and that man still has to go out there and pretend like he is.”
Perhaps the most famous Prime Ministerial resignation was Margaret Thatcher’s. She was forced out by her party, despite not having been defeated in a general election. Charles Moore, her biographer, says the manner in which she was forced out left a strong sense of injustice.
![Margaret Thatcher leaving Downing Street with her husband Dennis](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/07/19/TELEMMGLPICT000210584904_17214065350030_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqVeV8OoZxp1WMt6i1E9eewNQL7TbDl1ZJT5T8iKwddQI.jpeg?imwidth=350)
“The great difficulty in her mind about this was ‘What have I done wrong? I’ve won every election I’ve fought for you, three of them, and I’ve even won the first round of the election you’re trying to get me out of’,” he says. “She got more votes in the first round than Michael Heseltine, just not quite enough to avoid the second ballot. In her mind, it was a case of: ‘What more do you want from me? I’m not old, I’m not ill and it’s not as if you have a successor lined up for me. You’re telling me [I should go] but why should I?’ That was very strong psychologically. I met her not long afterwards when she was starting on her memoirs and I asked her what she would call them. She said ‘Undefeated’. It was literally true. It was a very difficult thing to overcome in a person like her. She felt people had been very disloyal. She was always unreconciled to it.
“A great many people felt that her time should be drawing to a close,” he adds. “Eleven and a half years was long enough and she had become unpopular. But they felt she should lose in a fair fight, which means a general election. She would have been shattered to lose but she would have seen it as fair. You can’t argue with the voters. On her tenth anniversary in office Dennis did advise her to go. She said she would but didn’t. His advice was wise, I think.”
The great counterexample to all this is Donald Trump. As with the general rules of politics, the conventions around resignation seem not to apply to him. While Biden faces mounting pressure from his own ranks, Trump, with independent wealth and an enormous base of passionate fans, seems able to toy with his opponents at will.
“Trump is an anomaly,” says Alex Holder, director of the documentary Unprecedented, about the 2020 American presidential election. “If Trump was in the same position as Biden is now, I don’t see a scenario in which he ever acquiesces. With Biden, it seems that he will go. Another thing he has that other politicians don’t have is that Trump could destroy the Republican party. In Britain, the Conservative Party is still bigger than Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak or even Boris Johnson.”
At the time of writing, it seems likely that Biden will stand aside. Whether that helps the Democrats win the election is another matter. If Trump is re-elected, we must not expect any graceful resignations. Last time, he refused to stand down – even after he lost.