Afternoon summary
- Boris Johnson has told his cabinet that yesterday’s confidence vote was “very important” because it meant the government could now “draw a line” under Partygate. (See 11.16am.) But William Hague, the former Tory leader, used his column in the Times to say that that Johnson’s position is now untenable and that he should quit. (See 9.23am.)
- Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, has said the NHS cannot be “complacent” about funding and that it must show it is spending money efficiently. Speaking at an Institute for Government event, he said:
What I would say to the NHS is that we should not be complacent about the fact that healthcare spending now accounts for a huge proportion of departmental expenditure, a significant proportion of the country’s GDP.
And I think the public feel a sense of real jeopardy and anxiety about the future of the NHS, and there are siren voices on the right that have always been there who say this system is simply not sustainable and shouldn’t we look at an insurance-based model or shouldn’t we look at people paying for certain types of healthcare in addition to the ones they already pay for. I don’t think we should be complacent about that.”
As well as making the case to the Treasury for greater investment in health and social care, the thing I would say to the NHS and social care leaders is you can’t be complacent about demonstrating that you are spending that money well, and I won’t be able to be complacent about demonstrating that we’re spending that money well if I’m the secretary of state for health and social care.
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Government 'genuinely open-minded' about future of BBC licence fee, peers told
The government is “genuinely open-minded” about the future of the BBC funding model despite Nadine Dorries’ concerns about the licence fee, culture minister Julia Lopez told the House of Lords. PA Media says:
Dorries, the culture secretary, announced earlier this year that the corporation’s licence fee will be frozen for the next two years, confirming she wants to find a new funding model before the current deal expires in 2027.
Lopez, minister for media, data, and digital infrastructure, appeared before the Lords communications committee as part of its inquiry into the future funding of the BBC.
She said: “The government is genuinely open-minded about the right model and we are seeking for somebody to survey the choices open to any government about the right way of funding the BBC and we are doing that in advancement of 2027 so that when we look at what we seek the BBC to achieve post-2027 we have a sense of how the best way of funding that will be.
“Looking at the licence fee itself, I think it is challenged by the technological revolution ....
“It is regressive that you pay the same regardless of your circumstances, it’s enforced through criminal sanctions and I know this is something [Dorries] has [been] particularly exercised about because she is concerned about conviction rates in particular for women.
“It is also quite expensive to administer ...
“There is an open question as to whether it can [be replaced] and maybe government decides it can’t and while the secretary of state has made clear her own position having serious concerns about the licence fee, she also said she is open-minded to what the right model is and if the review comes back and suggests that these are the pros and cons of other models and on balance the licence fee is better, I don’t think she would entirely dismiss that.”
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Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, has met Keir Starmer and other MPs before the imminent publication of the government’s bill that would allow it to abandon parts of the Northern Ireland protocol. In a statement, he says he urged Starmer and other parliamentarians to understand why the DUP wants to see the protocol replaced. He said:
Real progress is only made in Northern Ireland when there is consensus, yet the protocol was foisted upon the people of Northern Ireland despite every unionist MLA and MP opposing it. It was madness to press ahead and ignore the unionist opposition. Unlike Westminster, we operate power sharing in Northern Ireland, not majority rule. Not one unionist MLA supports the protocol. That represents more than 40% of the votes cast at the recent election.
The protocol must be replaced by arrangements that restore our place within the United Kingdom and the new arrangements must command the support of unionists as well as nationalists.
Critics would say the protocol was foisted on Northern Ireland because of Brexit, which was backed by the DUP but implemented in Northern Ireland despite the fact that 56% of people in Northern Ireland voted against it.
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This is from Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, on the results of the vote on her party’s ministerial code motion earlier. (See 4.24pm.)
Labour MPs voted today to adopt the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
— Angela Rayner 🌹 (@AngelaRayner) June 7, 2022
We were joined by other parties in our efforts to clean up politics.
But not one single Conservative MP voted in favour. A total abdication of leadership under Boris Johnson. pic.twitter.com/4fflg8RmDE
Tom Larkin at Sky News has a useful list of government ministers and PPSs who did not make statements on social media saying they would be backing Boris Johnson. This will be one to dig out when the next reshuffle takes place, to cross-reference against people getting sacked.
We're down to 18 now - the watchful eyes of No10 pointing out that Claire Coutinho did a supportive interview on Times Radio yesterday afternoon. And Jeremy Quin made a supportive statement on his personal website (but not on his Facebook page) https://t.co/704Z3EFJ5o
— Tom Larkin (@TomLarkinSky) June 7, 2022
Sam Coates at Sky says George Freeman claims he should not be on the list (even though his public comments did not include unambiguous support for the PM).
3.45pm updated list
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) June 7, 2022
* Note George Freeman disputes his public comments were ambiguous yesterday /
stopped short of explicit backing and says he should not be on this list - his contributions were here https://t.co/xH3kqgLYd2 but also here https://t.co/swxPxFJ6An https://t.co/bl22r2fzlz pic.twitter.com/kvp3aJiSId
Labour forced a division on its motion on beefing up the ministerial code (see 1.48pm), even though the government was not voting against. (You can do that by getting someone to shout “no” when the Speaker calls the vote, and putting up tellers for the no side.) The motion was passed by 215 votes to 0.
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Nigel Mills, the Conservative MP for Amber Valley, told the BBC that, although he voted against Boris Johnson yesterday, he was now willing to back the government. He said:
I voted against the prime minister yesterday and I wanted to see a change made, but I accept the result that my colleagues by a majority over 60 wanted to keep the prime minister – effectively saying we should forgive the indiscretions of the lockdown period and move on.
So that I think is the right approach now for the party, the government and the country. We’ve got a lot of serious crises that need tackling, we should get behind the government to do that.
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Amid growing speculation among backbenchers that Priti Patel is distancing herself from Boris Johnson – she did not tweet her backing for the prime minister before yesterday’s confidence vote, unlike almost all other senior cabinet members – her office has today insisted that she does still give him her backing. “She is supportive of the PM as you would expect. Any suggestion to the contrary is false,” an aide said.
Allies of Patel have expressed concern that she may be moved from the Home Office in a reshuffle – a move which she would be expected to oppose.
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Boris Johnson told cabinet this morning it was time to “draw a line” under Partygate. (See 11.16am.) This is what my colleague Marina Hyde has to say about this notion in her column today on the no-confidence vote.
Today’s other official angle is that last night’s horror show allows the government to “draw a line” under leadership speculation, and to stop the Tory infighting. A reminder: things we’ve done fairly recently to stop Tory infighting include having a referendum, having two general elections, and having no-confidence votes in both the past two leaders. How’s it working out for us, would you say? A significant number of the exhausted British public will feel they’ve worked harder on this relationship than their own marriages.
Still, Boris can change! He can make it work again with the voters! Settle an argument: who’s more likely to rekindle their relationship, Boris Johnson and the electorate, or Johnny Depp and Amber Heard? You’d think the latter would have a better shot at renewing their vows.
You can read Marina’s full article here.
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Labour says its proposed independent integrity and ethics commission would strengthen way standards enforced for MPs
At the start of the Commons debate on the Labour motion on strengthening the ministerial code, Michael Ellis, the Cabinet Office minister, said government MPs would not be voting against. That means the motion should pass when the debate ends in the next hour or so. (See 1.48pm.)
Here are some of the other lines from the opening speeches.
- Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, accused Boris Johnson of downgrading standards in public life. Opening the debate, she said:
We all are [proud of British values], but the conduct of this prime minister undermines those values – rigging the rules that he himself is under investigation for breaching, downgrading standards, debasing the principles of public life before our very eyes.
There is nothing decent about the way that he has acted. And what example does he set? This prime minister’s example of leadership: illegally proroguing parliament, breeding a Downing Street culture where his staff felt able to break lockdown rules including himself, putting the very standards that underpin our democracy to the shredder.
- Ellis rejected claims that Boris Johnson weakened the ministerial code when he published a revised version of it last month. He said:
It is, frankly, fake news to say, as some have, that it has been weakened. It is the exact opposite, it has been strengthened. In doing so he has unambiguously drawn on the advice of both the independent adviser on ministerial interests and the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
But Rayner said the changes announced by the prime minister did not go far enough because he had not implemented the recommendations from the Committee on Standards in Public Life in full. In a blog, cited in the debate by the Tory MP Danny Kruger, Tim Durrant from the Institute for Government thinktank said it was wrong to claim that Johnson had changed the code to stop him having to resign if he was found to have lied to parliament. But Durrant criticised the revised version of the code because it did not give the independent adviser on ministerial interests the right to initiate his own investigations, and Durrant queried other aspects of the rewrite too. He said:
Beyond the code and the role of the adviser, the most interesting part of [the] announcement is the accompanying statement from the Cabinet Office. In grandiose language, the statement sets out the government’s view that parliament can have no role whatsoever in upholding standards inside government as that would risk “conflating the executive and the legislature” ...
Changes to the foreword [to the code] also removed reference to the Nolan principles (though these are embedded in the code) and the impartiality of the civil service. In the statement and foreword, Johnson and his allies effectively state that they do not believe anyone should have the right to question how they behave in office once elected.
- Rayner said Labour would set up an independent integrity and ethics commission that will beef up the way standards for politicians are enforced. She explained:
Labour’s ethics commission will bring the existing committees and bodies that oversee standards and government under a single independent body removed from politicians.
Under our new commission, we would have powers to launch investigations without ministerial approval, collect evidence and decide sanctions.
Honesty matters, integrity matters and decency matters. We should be ambitious for high standards, and we should all be accountable.
- John Penrose, the Conservative MP who resigned yesterday as the government’s anti-corruption champion, claimed that Johnson’s broke the ministerial code in his Partygate activities because, as the Sue Gray report argued, he did not show leadership – one of the seven Nolan principles for integrity in public life required under the code. In response, Ellis did not accept that. The fact that Johnson broke the rules inadvertently was a factor, he said. (Ellis seemed to think Penrose was referring to Johnson being fined, but Penrose was talking about wider failures of leadership exposed by Partygate.)
- Rayner criticised claims by ministers that it was now time to move on from Partygate. She explained:
I have heard ministers on the media in the last 24 hours talking about how we must draw a line, how we must move on. But many people in this country cannot draw a line, cannot move on whilst this prime minister is in office, because it triggers them and what they experienced and the trauma that their family faced during the crisis.
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Former Brexit minister Lord Frost urges Johnson to cut taxes
Lord Frost, the former Brexit minister, told Radio 4’s World at One that he thought the government’s main problem was that it was not following Conservative principles, particularly on tax and the economy. He said:
Economic policy has drifted away from where the core of supporters, voters and membership want to go and we need to get back to it. And I believe that the prime minister would like to do that.
This prime minister is always best when he trusts his instincts and does unconventional things. And that’s what got us through the Brexit negotiations.
Frost also said that the government should reverse the increase in national insurance. Asked if he favoured abandoning the increase, he replied:
Yes - I think that all tax rises that we brought in and the corporation tax ones that are due to come in soon ought to be reversed. It is not Conservative to be raising taxes, and it is undermining growth and prosperity. We need to improve productivity and investment, and not weaken it ...
I don’t think it’s a particularly good solution to the social care problem, and I don’t think much of the money will end up going to it anyway.
I think the choice at the moment is, do we prioritise the deficit or the debt or do we prioritise growth and getting the economy going again, and I think for the time being we should be prioritising growth.
When Frost resigned as Brexit minister in December, he said he was because he was unhappy with the direction of government policy in a range of areas.
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Partygate breaches of lockdown rules in No 10 'very disappointing', says Patrick Vallance
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, has said that it was “very disappointing” that people in Downing Street did not follow the lockdown rules during the pandemic. Speaking to ITV, when asked if the Partygate had tarnished how he felt about his time in government during the pandemic, Vallace replied:
It was really important at all stages that everyone stuck to the rules, there’s no question about that. It only works when people stick to them and it’s very disappointing that that wasn’t the case.
Vallance was at Windsor Castle for an investiture ceremony, where he was being made made a knight commander of the Order of the Bath (ie, getting a higher class of knighthood).
“It was really important at all stages that everyone stuck to the rules... it’s very disappointing that that wasn’t the case."
— ITV News (@itvnews) June 7, 2022
Sir Patrick Vallance, government's chief scientific adviser, reacts to the Partygate scandal https://t.co/xJsl51N9Aw pic.twitter.com/dz3RN2HYqE
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MPs set to back Labour motion saying government should implement recommendations to strengthen ministerial code
In the Commons MPs are debating a Labour motion saying a motion saying the government should implement in full recommendations from the Committee on Standards in Public Life proposing to beef up the ministerial code. Boris Johnson was widely criticised last week when he issued a revised draft of the code that ignored many of these recommendations and effectively watered down the code in some respects.
Michael Ellis, the Cabinet Office minister and paymaster general, was speaking for the government, responding to Angela Rayner, who opened for Labour. As he finished his speech Ellis said the government would abstain on the motion. He said the government was still considering how it wanted to respond to all the recommendations from the committee.
This means the Labour motion will be passed. This is what it says.
That this house recognises the importance of the ministerial code for maintaining high standards in public life; endorses the Committee on Standards in Public Life report entitled Upholding Standards in Public Life, final report of the Standards Matter 2 review; calls on the government to implement all of the report’s recommendations as a matter of urgency; and further calls on the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster [Stephen Barclay] to make a statement to the house on the progress made in implementing the recommendations by 20 July 2022, and each year subsequently.
I will post more from the opening speeches in the debate soon.
Javid tells cabinet NHS needs reform because it's Blockbuster system 'in age of Netflix'
Boris Johnson told cabinet, in his opening remarks that were televised (see 11.16am), that they needed to come up with ideas for public service reform. At that point Johnson did not give any proper examples of what he meant, but at the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said that Sajid Javid, the health secretary, made a presentation to cabinet in which he said he wanted to overhaul the use of IT in the NHS. The spokesperson said:
[Javid] updated cabinet on the scale of the challenge post-pandemic – saying we had a Blockbuster healthcare system in the age of Netflix. He said it was no longer simply an option to stick with the status quo. He said large-scale changes were needed in areas such as the use of technology and data to help frontline workers deliver the high-quality service the public expects. He said government investment was delivering some early successes, with 1m checks delivered with the help of 90 new diagnostic centres created since July, with 70 more due to open within two years allowing for 9m extra checks and tests per year.
He said the government had set the NHS a target of dramatically improving productivity to save £4.5bn a year and outlined how the use of AI and technology could help free up clinicians to spend more time to patients.
Javid set out some of these proposals for NHS reform in a major speech in March, but the Blockbuster/Netflix analogy seems to be new.
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Ukraine should not be pressured into accepting bad peace deal, Johnson tells cabinet
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesperson said that Boris Johnson told ministers at cabinet that Ukraine should not be pressured into accepting “a bad peace”. The spokesperson said:
The prime minister concluded cabinet by saying the UK would remain at the forefront of supporting Ukraine. He said it was vital that President Zelenskiy was not pressured into accepting a bad peace, noting that bad peace deals do not last. He said the world must avoid any outcome where Putin’s unwarranted aggression appears to have paid off.
Ukrainian president says it's 'great news' that his ally Boris Johnson won confidence vote
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainain president, has said he is “very happy” that Boris Johnson won his confidence vote last night. Speaking at an online event hosted by the Financial Times, and speaking through a translator, Zelenskiy said:
I am very happy about this. Boris Johnson is a true friend of Ukraine. I regard him as our ally, and Great Britain as a great ally.
Boris is supporting us. Boris is very concrete in supporting Ukraine. I do not know who was responsible for this decision yesterday but I’m glad we have not lost a very important ally. This is great news. That is all I can say.
Last night Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, was criticised on social media by people who thought he was being tastless or unrealistic when he said that that Zelenskiy would be “punching the air” because of Johnson’s win.
Johnson has taken a lead in Europe in urging the international community to supply Ukraine with arms. But his policy has wide support within the Conservative party, and within parliament generally, and Johnson’s critics argue that his replacement as PM would not alter UK policy towards Ukraine.
Photograph: Ukrainian Presidency/UPI/REX/Shutterstock
No 10 has announced that Sir Christopher Bellamy QC is being made a justice minister. Bellamy, who is also getting a peerage so he can sit in the Lords, will replace Lord Wolfson, who resigned as a justice minister in April in protest at the law-breaking in No 10 during Partygate, and Boris Johnson’s response to it.
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Irish foreign minister expresses concern Tory leadership crisis could lead to PM hardening his position on NI protocol
The Irish government is concerned that Boris Johnson may harden his position on the Northern Ireland protocol to shore up his position within the Conservative party, Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, said this morning. He told RTÉ Radio:
If those divisions within the Conservative party impact on Ireland, because the prime minister or the British government decides in order to maintain support within the party that they have to take a tougher line on Brexit, or on the Northern Ireland protocol, well then obviously divisions in the Conservative party and in the British government impact on Ireland. And of course, that’s where we have a concern.
The UK government has already said that it plans to legislate to allow it to abandon parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, and the bill is expected to be published shortly. The Irish government wants the protocol to stay, subject to more modest changes agreed with Brussels.
The protocol is part of the UK’s Brexit deal with the UK and it imposes some checks on goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland so there is no need for controls at the Ireland/Northern Ireland border.
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The pound has stumbled lower amid uncertainty over Boris Johnson’s leadership despite his victory in Monday’s confidence vote and as fears mount over the strength of the UK economy, PA Media reports. PA says:
Sterling was lower against the US dollar and the euro as questions swirled around the prime minister’s position, having initially held on to gains after the vote was announced late on Monday.
The pound fell as much as 0.7% to $1.24 and half a cent to €1.17 at one stage on Tuesday - a sharp drop from earlier gains of nearly 1%.
London’s FTSE 100 index was also lower, edging down six points at 7602.4 in morning trading.
There are fears in the City over the path ahead for Boris Johnson after 148 of his own MPs voted against him, declaring they had no faith in his ability to lead the party.
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The Conservative MP Julian Lewis, who chairs parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC), has revealed that he voted against Boris Johnson last night. In a statement today, Lewis said Johnson thinks he can ignore the rules and has “an aversion to scrutiny bordering on contempt for the Commons”. Lewis said:
The prime minister’s record since 2019 has been a mixture of achievements and misadventures.
His difficulties derive largely from a belief that he and favoured friends can disregard rules, which others must follow. This weakens trust in the integrity of parliament. He has an aversion to scrutiny bordering on contempt for the Commons. Impropriety at the top of government is impossible to defend, especially when it is habitual.
Boris’s Brexit campaign secures his place in history and this should rightly comfort him.
Lewis had the Tory whip removed for several months in 2020 after he refused to vote for the No 10 candidate to be chair of the ISC, Chris Grayling, and instead arranged to be elected chair himself.
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In a speech to the Royal College of Nursing annual congress in Glasgow, Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, said it was “almost unbelievable” that nurses were having to use food banks. They deserved better pay, he said.
Two years ago the NHS was deservedly awarded the George Cross for its work during the pandemic, but the reward for individual nurses has been pay settlements well below inflation, leaving nurses much worse off.
Now, as part of the Platinum Jubilee, members of the armed forces and emergency services are rightly receiving Jubilee medals.
I say all nurses too should be lining up to receive Jubilee medals, but instead - and it’s almost unbelievable that this is the case in the fifth richest country in the world - today, too many nurses are lining up at food banks.
I hate the idea of nurses doing long shifts and then having to leave the beds of their patients to queue up for food parcels.
Surely, as a country, we didn’t come all this way to end up in the year 2022 with food banks, bedding banks, baby banks, and clothes banks replacing the welfare state as our last line of defence against poverty and low pay?
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Tory chief whip at Holyrood says he doesn't know how long 'damaged' PM can continue in office
After four out of six Scottish Tory MPs – including Scottish leader Douglas Ross - voted against Boris Johnson in last night’s confidence vote, the party’s chief whip at Holyrood, Stephen Kerr, had no comfort for the prime minister when he spoke to BBC Scotland this morning.
Kerr told Good Morning Scotland that “undoubtedly [Johnson] is damaged”, adding: “I don’t know how long the prime minister can continue.”
His words – which are believed to reflect the majority of opinion amongst Scottish Tory MSPs – go against a plea for unity from Scottish secretary Alister Jack, who said it was time to move on from debates about Johnson’s leadership.
But the vote has once again highlighted the inconsistency of Ross’s position . He was one of the most senior Tories to call for Johnson’s resignation when reports initially surfaced of Downing Street parties, he then withdrew his letter demanding a no-confidence vote, stating that the war in Ukraine required stable government, and while he did not resubmit it he went on the vote against Johnson when the vote was eventually triggered on Monday.
Kerr insisted that there was no flip-flopping involved. Defending Ross, he said:
Douglas has been consistent in terms of the principle – he made it clear from the outset that he had huge doubts about the conduct of the prime minister ...
It was only when circumstances changed with the Russian invasion of Ukraine that he said there are some things right now we need to set aside.
Scottish Tories are well aware of the impact of the prime minister’s unpopularity in Scotland after local council elections where their vote plunged to its worst for a decade, pushing them back into third place behind Scottish Labour.
Johnson tells cabinet they can now 'draw a line' under Partygate and focus on issues like cutting costs of government
Boris Johnson used his opening address to cabinet this morning to seek to draw a line under Partygate. PA Media has his words, and he tried to flesh out the line in the press notice issued early this morning (see 9.41am) about how the government is now focusing on “what the people of this country care about most”. Here are the main points.
- Johnson claimed yesterday’s vote was “very important” because it meant the government could now “draw a line” under Partygate. He said:
It was a very important day because we are able now to draw a line under the issues that our opponents want to talk about and we are able to get on talking about the issues, what the issues that I think the people want ... and what we are doing to help them and to take the country forward. That is what we are going to do. We are going to focus exclusively on that.
- He claimed the government had a “massive agenda” for change. He said:
We are going to get on with the massive agenda that we were elected to deliver in 2019.
It is a huge, huge thing that we are all part off, to really transform infrastructure, skills and technology, uniting and levelling up across the country, unleashing potential across the whole of the UK.
It is the totally morally, socially, economically, politically the right thing to do and we should be proud, proud, proud of what we’re doing.
- He said he wanted ministers to focus on “cutting the costs of government”. Arguing that the government was making a “huge investment” in public services, he said:
But it’s not enough just to spend money. We have got to spend it wisely.
We as Conservative ministers, we have got to make sure at every stage that we are driving reform and driving value.
So what I’m going to ask you all to do in each of your departments is make sure that you’re thinking the whole time about cutting the costs of government, about cutting the costs that business has to face and of course cutting the costs that everybody else faces, families up and down the country.
But he also said ministers should come up with ideas for public service reform too.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I’m going to ask everybody to come forward with ways in which we can, as I say, cut costs, drive reform and make sure that we understand that in the end, it is people who have the best feel for how to spend their own money rather than the government or the state.
And that is our fundamental, Conservative instinct and that way, I think we will be able to get on with our agenda, making this the most prosperous, the most successful economy in Europe.
- But he also said organisations like the Passport Office and the DVLA had to be more efficient. “I think in particular people deserve to get their passport and their driving licence just as much as they deserve to get their test, their scan or their screen on time, promptly and we’ve got to focus on that,” he said.
- He claimed the government could deliver tax cuts in the future. He said:
We will have the scope, by delivering tax cuts, I think, to deliver considerable growth in employment and economic growth.
Johnson and other ministers like talking up Tory proposals that would cut tax, but overall the tax burden has risen considerably under his premiership.
In a statement on his website Bob Seely, Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, says that he voted for Boris Johnson last night - but “not without some consideration and only after discussion with senior ministers”. He implies that he views Johnson as on probation.
Boris needs to regain a sense of purpose. People voted for a Conservative government. He needs to start delivering it ...
On this occasion, I have supported him, but he now needs to ensure that he is 100 percent focused on the job.
Seely also implies that the promise of more funding for his constituency was a factor in his decision to back his party leader.
I talked again with ministers about why a fair funding package has not yet been forthcoming for the Isle of Wight council. I have been assured they will look at this again and will do so in the very near future, ahead of the ongoing review of local government finance ...
I note that the PM is the only one ever to promise an improved funding settlement for the Island, and as such, and on balance, I would rather continue to focus on getting him to deliver on this commitment than start afresh with a PM who has not made, or may not offer to make, any such offer.
The Conservative MP Philip Dunne has told BBC Radio Shrophshire that he voted against Boris Johnson yesterday and that the PM’s win, with 59% of the vote, does not mean he is out of trouble. Dunn said:
I took the view that it would be better to provide the opportunity for integrity, for a new vision for the party and a new degree of competence at the heart of government.
It’s not going to happen for now, but we’ll have to see what happens in the coming weeks and months. This is not over.
[Johnson’s] got some very difficult challenges ahead - the by-elections, he’s got this privileges committee investigation - we’ve got some very tricky conditions ahead through the economy, challenges with the Northern Irish protocol. There are some very choppy waters ahead and they’d be difficult to navigate for anyone.
As Jessica Elgot reports, Tobias Ellwood, one of the leading anti-Johnson rebels, has also been suggesting this morning that Johnson could be gone by October.
Raab plays down significance of possible Tory defeats in two byelections later this month
Here is a summary of the main points from Dominic Raab’s interviews this morning.
- Raab, the justice secretary and deputy first minister, urged the Tory rebels to accept the result of last night’s vote. (See 9.23am.) He told LBC:
I think we draw a line in the sand after this vote, it was clearly and decisively won.
- He claimed the party could unite around its policy agenda. He said:
There’s a huge amount, when you look at our policy agenda that binds us together, that’s the way it is in the Conservative party.
And I think the best forward - momentum - will be to focus on that, because that’s the stuff that the people in the country, from the towns to the shires and the suburbs and everywhere in between, want us focused on.
This claim ignores the fact that, for some MPs who voted against Boris Johnson yesterday, policy differences were importance, and not just Pargygate. See, for example, what Jesse Norman, the former Treasury minister, said in his open letter explaining why he could not back the PM.
- Raab rejected claims that Johnson was in a worse position than Theresa May in December 2018. The May comparison was cited by many people last night because 37% of May’s MPs voted against her in a no-confidence motion and she resigned six months later. Yesterday 41% of Tory MPs voted against Johnson. But his position was different, Raab argued. He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
We won the biggest majority since 1987 in 2019, and that’s very different from, for example, the situation Theresa May found herself in because there was a hung parliament.
- He said that if the Tories were to lose the two byelections later this month, in Wakefield and in Tiverton and Honiton, that would not mean defeat at the general election was inevitable. He explained:
By-elections are often an opportunity for a protest vote in a way that a general election isn’t. Governments of the day often lose by-elections to go on to win them at a general election.
He stressed that the party was doing everything it could to win both byelections, but it sounded as if was conceding that defeat was more likely.
At cabinet this morning Boris Johnson will argue that the government is delivering on what matters to the public, No 10 says. It has issued a news release saying Johnson will tell his colleagues:
This is a government that delivers on what the people of this country care about most.
We have pledged £37bn to support households with their finances, made our communities safer through hiring 13,500 more police officers, and tackled the Covid backlogs in the NHS by opening nearly 100 community diagnostic centres so people can access care closer to home.
Today, I pledge to continue delivering on these priorities. We are on the side of hard-working British people, and we are going to get on with the job.
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What papers say about Tory vote on Johnson
My colleague Martin Farrer has a round-up of how the national papers are covering the no-confidence vote yesterday. The Daily Mail and the Daily Express have a pro-Johnson gloss on their splash coverage, but elsewhere the coverage is much more negative for No 10, and even the Daily Telegraph, Johnson’s former employer and a paper he values so much he used to call it his “real boss”, provides little comfort.
Rebels warn Johnson rules could be changed to allow another challenge
Rebel Conservatives have given Boris Johnson until the party conference to change direction or they warn rules could be altered to allow another challenge, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.
Raab urges rebels to respect result as former leader William Hague says PM should quit
Good morning. We like to think that elections and votes can resolve political disputes, and provide an element of closure. It is one of the reasons journalists cover them so intensely. But, of course, sometimes they don’t, and last night’s no-confidence ballot in Boris Johnson’s leadership is a classic example. Tory MPs hoped that, one way or another, it would terminate the crisis. Yet it hasn’t, and Johnson’s dysfunctional government psychodrama is back for another season.
Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, was doing the interview round this morning and he urged Johnson’s opponents in the party to respect the result and move on. He told Sky News:
The prime minister won it with 59%, that is actually more than he got in terms of support when he was elected leader of the Conservative party.
But we have had that vote now, I think it was the prerogative of those calling for it to have it, the prime minister won it clearly, he won it by 63 votes ... and now the most important thing I think is to respect that result and to move forward.
Raab is a former foreign secretary. But another former foreign secretary, William Hague, who is also a former Tory leader, and someone who was in parliament when Margaret Thatcher and John Major were facing leadership challenges, has come to a different conclusion. In his column in the Times, Hague says that Johnson’s position is now untenable and that he should quit. He says:
While I never faced a vote of no confidence in my four years as opposition leader, I would have regarded my position as completely untenable if more than a third of my MPs had ever voted against me. John Major was entirely ready to resign in 1995 if he had not won the support of a very large majority of the party. If, with all the power of the party leadership, all the years of acquaintance with MPs, all the knowledge they have of your abilities and plans, you still cannot crush a vote of no confidence by a commanding margin, then not only is the writing on the wall but it is chiselled in stone and will not wash away ...
No individual in politics matters more than the health of our democracy. That health depends on voters having faith in the integrity of leaders even if they disagree with them, respect for how government is conducted, and a competitive choice at a future election. The votes just cast show that a very large part of the Conservative party cannot see Johnson providing that.
Hague also argues that there are two sorts of rebellions against a party leader. Major and Theresa May both faced attempted coups by organised factions with an agenda. But the anti-Johnson campaign was “more disparate, less organised but more spontaneous”, triggered by the fact that many different groups in the party have lost faith in him. A rebellion of this sort brought down Iain Duncan Smith in 2003, Hague says. He goes on:
The nature of their revolt has an important bearing on what happens next. They are not a faction that has been seen off, or an alternative policy direction that has been defeated. They represent instead a widespread feeling, a collapse of faith, that almost certainly cannot be repaired or reversed. For Johnson, continuing to lead the party after such a revolt will prove to be unsustainable.
Hague says Johnson should accept that he can’t recover and resign.
While Johnson has survived the night, the damage done to his premiership is severe. Words have been said that cannot be retracted, reports published that cannot be erased, and votes have been cast that show a greater level of rejection than any Tory leader has ever endured and survived. Deep inside, he should recognise that, and turn his mind to getting out in a way that spares party and country such agonies and uncertainties.
I will be covering more reaction to last night’s vote throughout the day.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.
10am: Lord Frost, the former Brexit minister, gives evidence to the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
12.30pm: Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, holds a Q&A at the Institute for Government thinktank.
After 12.30pm: MPs begin debating a Labour motion saying the government should implement in full Committee on Standards in Public Life proposals to beef up the ministerial code.
4.45pm: Sajid Javid, the health secretary, gives evidence to the Commons health committee about staffing in the NHS.
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