LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – The ballot begins with Tory MPs casting a no-confidence vote against Boris Johnson. Over a dozen MPs stand in a queue. Sir Peter Bottomley is the first togo in. (The MPs are only allowed one at a time.) The Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, a leading critic of Boris Johnson’s, Sir Roger Gale, chair of the education committee, Robert Halfon and Peter Bone are those among the crowd.
With relation to the Partygate events, Johnson is said to have told Tory MPs that he would ‘do it all over again’
Boris Johnson’s statement to Tory MPs (as reported by Patrick Maguire of the Times) that he would “do it again” in regards to Partygate could prove to be a significant blunder. As a presumption, he was referring to his attendance at different leaving events, for which he was not penalised and which he justified on the grounds that, as a leader, thanking departing employees was crucial for morale.
Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, said he would vote against Boris Johnson because he has heard “loud and clear” public outrage against him
When the Partygate scandal erupted at the beginning of the year, Ross was among the first Conservative MPs to demand Johnson’s resignation. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he changed his stance and stated that replacing Johnson would be inappropriate given the continuing conflict. His opponents in Scotland mocked him for withdrawing the letter which he had submitted asking for a no-confidence vote.
In his pitch to Tory MPs, Johnson to emphasise his record as an election winner
Boris Johnson is believed to tell Tory MPs, according to Sky’s Beth Rigby, that the Conservatives secured their biggest electoral win in 40 years under his leadership.
Johnson’s speeches are notorious for containing false remarks, and this one is no exception. In 1983 and 1987, Margaret Thatcher won majorities of 144 and 102, respectively, making Johnson’s victory the best in 30 years, not 40. Maybe that was a mistake.
The allusion to the single market is a dig at Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee, who recommended rejoining it last week.
According to a ConservativeHome poll, over half of Tory members want their MPs to get rid of Johnson
The ConservativeHome website had today announced their own poll results of members on if the Tory MPs should vote to oust Boris Johnson, with a slim majority (55 percent) voting to do so. Another 41% believe the MPs should support him.
This is worse for Johnson than a YouGov survey on the same topic, which indicated a slim majority of members opposing Johnson’s removal. It’s difficult to poll party members directly (since there are so few), but the ConservativeHome results have a decent track record – and today’s sample included more than twice as many members as YouGov’s.
This is from ConservativeHome editor Paul Goodman’s analysis of the findings.
This is for the first time that the panel has decided that [Johnson] should resign, despite the fact that the prime minister was at the bottom of their Cabinet League Table the previous month and had low approval ratings.
To say that his situation had deteriorated since their last assessment on May 29 was a statement of the obvious, and he wouldn’t undertake an exhaustive study of why that was the case.
Apart from pointing out that the protracted Jubilee celebrations hadn’t helped him with the panel.
Party members would not have had a vote later this day, for better or worse, and MPs would have to make their decisions based on what they believed was the right decision for the country.
