(London) Weakened by months of the “partygate” scandal, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces a vote of no confidence on Monday evening from his majority, increasingly exasperated by his leader.
Posted at 6:18 a.m.
The festive parenthesis of the platinum jubilee celebrating the 70 years of reign of Elizabeth II barely closed, the United Kingdom has resumed with the affair which has poisoned British political life for months and was relaunched by the publication of a harsh report on parties held in Downing Street during lockdowns.
The Chairman of the Conservative Party’s 1922 Committee, Graham Brady, announced that the fateful threshold of 54 letters from MPs, or 15% of the parliamentary group, asking for the leader’s departure had been reached, through a procedure shrouded in great secrecy fueling the speculations.
“I informed the Prime Minister yesterday (Sunday) that the threshold had been reached and he agreed that the vote should take place as soon as possible,” he explained on television.
The vote will take place between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. local time (1 p.m. and 3 p.m. EDT) behind closed doors and the result announced immediately.
If Boris Johnson is defeated, an internal election will be launched to appoint a new leader of the party, who will become prime minister, in a context of war in Ukraine and inflation at its highest for 40 years.
If he wins, he cannot be targeted by another motion of no confidence for a year.
Via his spokesperson, Boris Johnson “welcomed the opportunity given to him to present his arguments to MPs”, saying he hoped that the vote “allows the government to draw a line and move on by responding the priorities of the people.
“Grotesque”
Triumphantly coming to power in 2019 with the promise of getting the country out of the Brexit impasse, the 57-year-old leader has long maintained a stainless popularity. Despite the accumulation of scandals, he maintained himself by highlighting his leading role in the Western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
He has so far also been favored by the lack of an obvious successor in the ranks of the Conservatives, who have been in power for 12 years in the United Kingdom.
But his slump in popularity has already caused heavy setbacks for the Tories in local elections in early May. The majority increasingly doubt the ability of “BoJo”, booed by the crowd during the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations, to win the 2024 legislative elections.
Far from putting an end to the “partygate” which has embarrassed the Conservative government for six months, the publication at the end of May of an administrative report detailing the extent of breaches of anti-COVID-19 rules in Downing Street has sparked new calls for resignation, announced in dribs and drabs.
Last to come out of the woods on Monday morning, MP Jesse Norman deemed the Prime Minister’s defense in this case “grotesque” and criticized a whole series of policies announced in recent weeks, on Northern Ireland or immigration.
Boris Johnson, who was fined by the police in the partygate investigation (unheard of for a sitting prime minister), said he took “full responsibility for everything that happened”, but felt he had to “continue” his work.
Opposition Labor leader Keir Starmer called on the Tories to oust him: “He has lost the country’s trust, that’s pretty clear,” he told LBC radio.
Before the announcement of the vote of no confidence, Boris Johnson’s chief of staff, MP Steve Barclay, had called on elected officials not to “waste time and energy” on internal issues: “the next legislative elections will be decided in depending on who offers the best vision […]not past mistakes or successes,” he told ConservativeHome.
If he wins Monday night’s vote, the problems will not be over for Boris Johnson. In 2018, Theresa May, who preceded him in her post, survived a motion of no confidence before having to resign a few months later, too weak.
Another investigation into the “partygate” is also planned, this one parliamentary. If the latter concludes that Boris Johnson misled the House of Commons by claiming not to have broken the rules, he is supposed to resign.