British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced a crunch Conservative Party confidence vote yesterday night after dozens of his Conservative Party lawmakers triggered a contest following a string of scandals that have shattered confidence in his leadership.
The beleaguered leader has spent months battling to maintain his grip on power after the so-called “Partygate” controversy saw him become the first serving British prime minister found to have broken the law.
If he loses, he must step down as Conservative Party leader and prime minister.
Photo: AFP
A scathing internal probe into Partygate last month said that he had presided over a culture of COVID-19 lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street that ran late into the night and featured a drunken fight among staff.
Brexit-architect Johnson, who won a landslide election victory in December 2019, has steadfastly refused to resign.
The 57-year-old has said he takes responsibility for the saga and pointed to a reorganization of the structure inside No. 10 Downing Street, while insisting he must remain in charge.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Johnson “welcomes the opportunity to make his case to MPs [members of parliament],” adding that the vote would be “a chance to end months of speculation and allow the government to draw a line and move on.”
Johnson was expected to address his lawmakers before the vote and is reportedly also to write a letter to them.
Earlier Graham Brady, who chairs the Conservative Private Members’ Committee, which oversees party leadership challenges, said that the threshold of 54 Conservative lawmakers seeking a confidence vote, or 15 percent of lawmakers, had been met.
He said the ballot would be held between 6pm and 8pm yesterday, with votes counted immediately and an announcement to follow “at a time to be advised.”
Johnson was informed on Sunday night — after four days of national celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee ended — that the vote had been triggered, Brady said.
“We agreed the timetable for the confidence vote ... should happen as soon as could reasonably take place, and that would be today,” he said.
Brady did not disclose how many no-confidence letters he had received from Conservative lawmakers, adding that some had post-dated them until after the jubilee celebrations.
The 359 Tories sitting in the British House of Commons would decide Johnson’s fate by secret ballot. If he wins — half the votes cast plus one — the embattled leader cannot be challenged again for a year.
However, the party could change its own rules to allow another contest sooner.
If he loses, a leadership contest would follow in which he cannot stand.
British lawmaker Jesse Norman, a Conservative, was the latest to go public with his discontent, yesterday posting a withering letter online that he had written to Johnson.
Listing a litany of problems with his tenure, Norman wrote: “For you to prolong this charade by remaining in office not only insults the electorate ... it makes a decisive change of government at the next election much more likely.”
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