Boris Johnson has run out of road
For a man who wanted to be ‘world king’ and who thought that the normal rules of politics never really applied to him, the next 24 hours could prove to be crucial as he now battles to remain prime minister amid reports of an imminent vote of no confidence.
Boris Johnson has run out of road. Letters of no confidence are said to be flying in from all wings of the Tory party, yet it’s the 2019 intake of Tory MPs, those who rode the red wall to win their seats at the last election, who are now driving the attempt to boot Johnson from office and trigger a leadership election.
According to the Telegraph, a further 11 members of the 2019 intake have submitted letters of no confidence to the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs this morning. A senior Tory backbencher told ITV’s Paul Brand that they were confident that the target of 54 letters to trigger a vote of no confidence would be met today.
The plot to remove Johnson has gathered momentum in the last 24 hours, with a number of the 2019 intake meeting yesterday to discuss Boris Johnson’s future. A disastrous interview Johnson gave to Sky’s Beth Rigby was said to have made things significantly worse after he insisted that ‘nobody had told him’ that the 20 May 2020 Downing Street party was against the rules.
Johnson is the one who helped come up with the rules and former aide Dominic Cummings is willing to testify under oath that that the PM was warned against the party beforehand, which if proven, would mean Johnson has once more misled Parliament.
The 2019 intake is also said to have been furious at the way Downing Street was briefing against them, with one cabinet minister saying: “It’s pretty sickening. They were only elected because of him. Most of them are a load of f****** nobodies. It’s nuts’.
It’s also been reported that the whips operation backfired. MPs were threatened with losing their seats under boundary changes if they didn’t back down. For Johnson, the writing is now on the wall.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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