Enough Tory MPs have requested a vote of confidence in Boris Johnson to trigger a contest, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady has announced. A vote will happen this evening at 6pm.
If half of MPs vote that they do not hold confidence in Mr Johnson’s leadership, then he will be ousted.
But, as the rules currently stand, if Mr Johnson wins a confidence vote, he cannot be challenged again for 12 months.
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, said in a statement: “The threshold of 15% of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the leader of the Conservative Party has been exceeded.
“In accordance with the rules, a ballot will be held between 6pm and 8pm today, Monday, June 6 — details to be confirmed.
“The votes will be counted immediately afterwards. An announcement will be made at a time to be advised. Arrangements for the announcement will be released later today.”
“The votes will be counted immediately afterwards. An announcement will be made at a time to be advised. Arrangements for the announcement will be released later today.”
Downing Street said Boris Johnson “welcomes the opportunity to make his case to MPs”, with a No 10 spokeswoman saying tonight’s vote was “a chance to end months of speculation and allow the Government to draw a line and move on”.
A No 10 spokeswoman said: “Tonight is a chance to end months of speculation and allow the Government to draw a line and move on, delivering on the people’s priorities.
“The PM welcomes the opportunity to make his case to MPs and will remind them that when they’re united and focused on the issues that matter to voters there is no more formidable political force.”
Almost 30 Tory MPs publicly urged the Prime Minister to resign amid the fallout from revelations about Downing Street parties held during lockdown.
Sir Graham Brady told reporters in Westminster that Boris Johnson was informed last night that the threshold to trigger a vote had been reached.
He said some colleagues had post-dated their letters until after the Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
He told reporters in Westminster: “I notified the Prime Minister yesterday that the threshold had been reached.
“We agreed the timetable for the confidence vote to take place and he shared my view – which is also in line with the rules that we have in place – that that vote should happen as soon as could reasonably take place and that would be today.”
He refused to confirm how many letters had been received or when the threshold had been passed but said “it is slightly complicated because some colleagues had asked specifically that it should not be until the end of the Jubilee celebrations”.
Under Conservative Party rules, if 54 letters from MPs are sent to Sir Graham Brady – the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories – asking for a leadership poll then a vote is called. As well as facing trouble on his backbenches, Mr Johnson also faced public backlash during the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend, including being booed on Friday by some sections of a crowd during his arrival at a thanksgiving service for the Queen at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Tory fears about their leader’s standing among the public were also likely to have been further fuelled by polling carried out ahead of the Wakefield by-election by JL Partners. The survey found the Conservatives could lose the key battleground seat, which was one of tens of constituencies Mr Johnson took from Labour in the so-called Red Wall during his 2019 landslide general election win, by as much as 20 points to Sir Keir Starmer’s party this month.
With the Tiverton and Honiton by-election due to be held on the same day, June 23, as Wakefield, Mr Johnson faces the prospect of losing seats to Labour in the north of England and the Liberal Democrats in the South West. The by-elections will be the first electoral test for the governing party since senior civil servant Sue Gray’s investigation into coronavirus rule-breaching events in No 10 and Whitehall was published last month.
Ms Gray laid bare the details of raucous parties while also finding that the Prime Minister had attended a number of leaving dos for aides, giving speeches and joining in the drinking of alcohol, despite at the same time telling the public not to see sick and dying loved ones in a bid to stop the spread of the virus.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, deemed to be one of Mr Johnson’s closest allies in the Cabinet, told the BBC on Sunday morning that he did not think the Prime Minister would face a confidence test. However, business minister Paul Scully told Channel 4 hours later that it “may well happen”, in a possible signal his supporters are readying for a poll to be announced.
Mr Scully said that, no matter the outcome of the vote, the party needed to move on to deal with the “big things” facing the country, admitting that the so-called partygate affair had “stretched out” for too long.
