Angry UK lawmakers trigger confidence vote in Boris Johnson - Reuters.com

Angry UK lawmakers trigger confidence vote in Boris Johnson  Reuters.com

LONDON, June 6 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson survived a confidence vote on Monday but a large rebellion in his Conservative Party over the so-called "partygate" scandal dealt a blow to his authority and leaves him with a struggle to win back support.
Johnson, who scored a sweeping election victory in 2019, has been under increasing pressure after he and staff held alcohol-fuelled parties in his Downing Street office and residence when Britain was under lockdowns to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.


The vote was a blow to Johnson, with 41% of his lawmakers casting ballots against his leadership after months of scandals and gaffes that has raised questions over his authority to govern Britain and knocked his standing among the public.

But Johnson, a master of political comebacks, instead described the vote as a "decisive result" meaning that "as a government we can move on and focus on the stuff that I think really matters to people".


"We can focus on what we're doing to help people with the cost of living, what we're doing to clear the COVID backlogs, what we're doing to make streets and communities safer by putting more police out," said Johnson, who for weeks has tried to move the national conversation away from "partygate". read more

It is a change of fortune for Johnson and underlines the depth of anger against him. He was met with a chorus of jeers and boos, and some muted cheers, at events to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth in recent days.

Several lawmakers said the vote, which saw 211 lawmakers cast ballots in favour of Johnson against 148, was worse than expected for a prime minister, once seemingly unassailable after winning the Conservatives' largest majority in more than three decades.

"Boris Johnson will be relieved at this vote. But he will also understand that the next priority is to rebuild the cohesion of the party," David Jones, a former minister, told Reuters. "I am sure he will be equal to the challenge."

Others were less optimistic, with one Conservative lawmaker saying on condition of anonymity: "It is clearly much worse than most people were expecting. But it is too early to say what will happens now."

Roger Gale, a long-time critic of Johnson, urged the prime minister "to go back to Downing Street tonight and consider very carefully where he goes from here".

12-MONTH REPRIEVE

By winning the confidence vote, Johnson has secured a reprieve for 12 months when lawmakers cannot bring another challenge. But his predecessor Theresa May scored better in her 2018 confidence vote only to resign six months later. read more

A majority of the Conservatives' lawmakers - at least 180 - would have had to vote against Johnson for him to be removed.

Earlier, a spokesperson for Johnson's Downing Street office said the vote would "allow the government to draw a line and move on" and that the prime minister welcomed the opportunity to make his case to lawmakers. read more

Johnson, a former London mayor, rose to power at Westminster as the face of the Brexit campaign in a 2016 referendum, and won the 2019 election with the slogan to "get Brexit done".

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brexit opportunities minister, told Sky News that completing Britain's departure from the European Union would be "significantly at risk without his drive and energy".

Johnson has locked horns with Brussels over Northern Ireland, raising the prospect of more barriers for British trade and alarming leaders in Ireland, Europe and the United States about risks to the province's 1998 peace deal.

But it was the months of stories of what went on in Downing Street, including fights and alcohol-induced vomiting, when many people were prevented from saying goodbye to loved ones at funerals, that did the real damage.

The move led to lawmakers from different wings of the party revealing that they had turned against their leader. One former ally accused the prime minister of insulting both the electorate and the party by staying in power.

"You have presided over a culture of casual law-breaking at 10 Downing Street in relation to COVID," Jesse Norman, a former junior minister, said before the vote.

Johnson's anti-corruption chief John Penrose also quit.

Tory MPs to hold no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson this evening, Graham Brady says – live  The Guardian

Evening summary


Here’s a roundup of the key developments from this evening:Boris Johnson was clinging to his premiership on Monday night after 148 of his MPs voted to oust him from Downing Street in a ballot that exposed potentially fatal rifts within his party. The prime minister won the support of 211 MPs but 41% of his party voted to get rid of him. It was the worst verdict on a sitting prime minister by their own party in recent times.
In a clip for broadcasters Boris Johnson has described the result as “good news” because, he claimed, it would allow the government to put Partygate behind it and to focus on “what we as a government are doing to help people”. He insisted it was an “extremely good” result despite a worse performance than Theresa May in her confidence vote.
Keir Starmer said it was “grotesque” that Tory MPs voted to support someone with no sense of duty. He said: “The Conservative party now believes that breaking the law is no impediment to making the law. The Conservative party now believes that the British public have no right to expect honest politicians.”
Starting an instant spin operation outside the room where the result was announced, the Foreign Office minister James Cleverly called it “a comfortable win” and said rebels should now give up on their efforts. Meanwhile, Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, told Sky News that Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, would be “punching the air” tonight because his ally, Boris Johnson, will remain as PM.
Tory rebels have vowed to keep trying to force Boris Johnson from office, as the prime minister’s allies admitted he was reaching “the beginning of the end” after a devastating result in Monday night’s confidence vote. They will hold his feet to the fire as the next Partygate inquiry – into whether the prime minister misled parliament by denying any Covid rules were broken in Downing Street – gets under way in the coming weeks.



My colleague Jessica Elgot has written about how the day of infighting played out.

Boris Johnson’s allies had always said about the vote of no confidence that victory by just one vote was still a win, and he would remain in Downing Street and get on with delivering “the people’s priorities”.

They will no doubt be cracking opening the bubbly on Monday evening. But the truth is that with 148 votes against him, the task of governing is likely to become more, not less difficult in the weeks and months ahead.

As rebel MPs determined to oust him are likely to point out at the earliest opportunity, those 148 rebels dramatically outnumber Johnson’s working majority of 75.

While they are not a coherent group of zealots, of the kind that ultimately saw off Theresa May over Brexit policy, his detractors do share a set of concerns they may now feel emboldened to pursue more vocally – including by withholding their support in the voting lobbies.

Some are irked by the fact the government is on a trajectory towards the highest tax burden since Clement Attlee was in power.

Others have spoken out in recent months about the illiberal nature of Johnson’s government, which has become more marked in recent months as he tried to appease the right wing of his party after his position appeared under threat in January.

The former minister Jesse Norman – biographer of the Conservative intellectual hero Edmund Burke – pointed in his blistering letter on Monday to the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, and the ban on noisy protests.

Yet more MPs are frustrated at the sense of drift and indecision in the face of a mounting economic crisis – or simply fear for their seats, with a party leader the public appear to be firmly convinced is a proven liar.

Johnson did little to win over the latter group at Monday’s 1922 Committee meeting, where he appeared unrepentant about Partygate, even telling MPs he would attend boozy lockdown leaving bashes again.

Afterwards, one ally delivered an extraordinarily tone deaf briefing to waiting journalists, asking them: “Is there anyone here who hasn’t got pissed in their lives? Is there anyone here who doesn’t like a glass of wine to decompress?”

It is just possible that the bullish Johnson is not feeling as bloody-minded as the briefing suggests, and after the humiliation of being booed outside St Paul’s on Friday, his fragile ego could finally get the better of him and prompt him to resign.

But most colleagues believe he is likely to remain in Downing Street, hoping to bulldoze his way through to the next general election.

 

Boris Johnson will face a vote of confidence, Sir Graham Brady announces  The Telegraph

Boris Johnson will win the confidence vote – but even so, it’s over for him  The Independent

This, to borrow a phrase, is the beginning of the end for the nasty, brutish and short premiership of Boris Johnson.
He’s moved fast and decisively for a change, in getting the vote of confidence under way as soon as possible, in an effort to deny his less organised enemies a chance to get their act together and mobilise opposition. It suggests a certain nervousness on his part – even panic.

The cabinet, or most of it, will back him: the large “payroll” vote of ministers are morally obliged to either vote for him or resign, and some Tory MPs remain irrationally devoted to the idea of “Boris” as a brilliant leader and gifted campaigner.


They are so invested in Brexit and in him that there is nothing he could do, no crime he could commit, that would persuade them that the game is up. These are people who believe he did well in the local elections, that Brexit is going swimmingly, that people are “moving on from Partygate”, and that the mainstream media made up the story that he was booed on the way in and again on the way out at the jubilee thanksgiving service.

So he’ll win, but it might be tight, and the vote will not “draw a line and move on”. Some big names may quit during the day, because many cannot accept the result. If you think Johnson is a disaster on Monday morning, you’re not going to believe he’s a genius on Monday evening, and no one would believe you if you said so.

More importantly, a vote in which, say, 100-plus of his own MPs have indicated that they don’t have any confidence in him means that he will just limp on to the next election, dithering, delaying, a prisoner of the different factions in his own party and the irremediable flaws in his own personality.

Many MPs, and not just in marginal seats, are contemplating the end of their careers at the next election, and there is nothing to suggest otherwise. For Boris Johnson, winning the vote of confidence by one vote will be enough. According to the rules, it is.

Politically, he’s finished, and it will be a long, drawn-out affair. Next up are a couple of disastrous by-elections, historically so, in Wakefield and in Tiverton & Honiton; there will be more inflation, more hungry kids, more Brexit chaos, more strikes, more austerity, higher mortgage bills, a recession, and possibly a housing crash. Plus a trade war with Europe and the collapse of the Irish peace process.


I may be wrong but I think Boris Johnson is done for. I can’t see his Tory cult surviving The Guardian

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