Opinion: Despite winning confidence vote, Boris Johnson knows his political world is closing in on him

Boris Johnson, a man whose political career has often consisted of unlikely last-minute escapes from the disasters of his own making, faced his most challenging test on Monday night, when his own MPs held a vote of confidence late in the morning. the night on his admitted law. breakups and ethical lapses arising from their lockdown-era parties.

He survived the vote by 211 to 148, which means that he will return to 10 Downing St. on Tuesday knowing that only 59 per cent of his 359 MPs trust him and, given that more than 160 of those MPs are ministers and parliamentary secretaries, and thus bound by contract to support him, he will know that his political world is closing in on him.

That might seem like a familiar state of affairs for the perpetually disheveled former newspaper columnist, whose career since becoming prime minister in 2019 has often consisted of unlikely self-rescue. But this time, even many of the MPs who voted to keep him admitted they see little future for him.

“I mean, we don’t have an alternative,” MP Kwasi Kwarteng, who serves as Secretary of State for Business in Johnson’s cabinet, said in a radio interview. “I think the idea that we spend three months or whatever to find a new leader and all that, going through that whole beauty pageant, is absurd.”

Johnson is far from the first sitting British prime minister to face a vote of confidence within his party; he succeeded Conservatives Theresa May, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. The last Conservative leader to lose such a vote was Iain Duncan Smith in 2003, although most of the others resigned shortly after their confidence votes.

Johnson survived Monday night by a narrower margin than May or Thatcher. And, unlike them, he has an indelible record of breaking the law and his own party’s rules of conduct, making him extremely vulnerable to a constituency that may have turned against his path on Brexit and other policies.

“I think Boris will win technically, but I think it will be a psychological defeat,” said Tory MP David Davis, a former Brexit secretary. “We can end up with a kind of paralyzed government or a populist government, where everything they do is designed to curry favor with one sector or another of the population, and that is quite dangerous. That’s where governments go wrong.”

Boris Johnson’s bungling goes far beyond a Christmas party

Boris Johnson’s clown car heads into a ditch

Mr Johnson’s fateful moment began at the weekend, as he stood before television cameras watching the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. He received a call from Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, which represents the party’s Conservative MPs. The committee had received enough quorum votes to trigger an internal no-confidence vote, he said, as Johnson struggled to keep a smile on his face.

Apparently, the vote was about parties. During the pre-vaccination months between April 2020 and spring 2021, when his government banned all gatherings during national lockdowns and many Britons were forced to miss funerals for loved ones, Mr Johnson and his staff held as many as 12 booze-fueled parties, at least three attended by Mr. Johnson himself, including a birthday party for him during the deadliest period of the 2020 pandemic.

At first, Mr. Johnson denied that parties were held, then claimed that they were meetings, and then that he had not personally attended them. Explosive video evidence ultimately contradicted all of those claims.

Inquiries by the government’s Cabinet Office found that he had breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct, suggesting that he would have to resign if he had broken the law. The Metropolitan Police found that he had indeed broken their own law and issued him a penalty notice.

He responded by altering the Ministerial Code of Conduct, removing language that suggested he would have to resign. Many MPs, including some loyal supporters, said it was untenable to have a prime minister who had knowingly broken the law and engaged in what many saw as corrupt and deeply unethical practices.

Beyond this, however, the Conservative rebels felt that Johnson could not survive an election after a series of failures. His proudly defended exit from the European Union has led to crises in food and medical supplies, empty shelves and travel catastrophes. His agreement to send refugee claimants to Rwanda has outraged moderates for its shocking ethics and fiscal conservatives for its high cost.

What he reportedly offered his MPs in his behind-closed-doors defense speech on Monday night was more tax cuts and deregulation, the kind of right-wing wallpaper unlikely to inspire them on the campaign trail while they struggle to avoid mentioning a party leader nearly half of them have said to leave.

Keep your opinions sharp and informed. Receive the Opinion newsletter. sign up today.