Things just keep getting worse for Boris Johnson. On the same day that one of his MPs defected to the Labour party, former Brexit minister David Davis stood up in parliament to call for Johnson’s resignation.
The voices calling for the prime minister’s departure are mounting. If 54 letters of no-confidence in him are sent to the backbench 1922 Committee, a leadership contest will be triggered. Many members of Johnson’s party will therefore be calculating whether such a move against him is the right course of action. Central to this thinking will be whether continuing with Johnson as leader would cost them their seat in the next election.
Support for the Conservatives has been nosediving in the polls following the scandal over gatherings held in Downing Street during pandemic lockdowns. We can learn something about how concerned Conservative MPs should be by looking at polling over the last ten years or so – specifically the voting intentions for Labour and the Conservatives since the general election of 2010.
