Polly Toynbee: He will be on the run from booing from now on
They will get their comeuppance, those 211 cowardly MPs, crawlers and placemen who clung to their grotesquely unfit leader. The public’s mind is made up.
But the incorrigible one bashes on, hitting anything that gets in his way. “Getting on with the job” means grasping anything to appease Boris Johnson’s wildly divergent rebels, ranging from off-the-scale rightwingers like Steve Baker to upright constitutionalists such as Jesse Norman, shocked by Rwanda expulsions, Northern Ireland protocol treaty-breaking and a denuded ministerial code. This week Johnson will promise a 70% bribe to housing association tenants, selling off remaining social housing. Yesterday he wooed MPs with imminent tax cuts, never mind our derelict public services.
Survive? He’ll be on the run from booing from now on, never daring to meet un-vetted voters for fear someone tells him of a mother dying alone while he lied about partying and puking inside No 10. “I’d do it again”, the “humbled” one told MPs last night.
The Mail’s splash today features a red button, warning “148 Tory MPs hit the self-destruct button by opening the door to smirking Starmer’s coalition of chaos: Lib Dem, Labour, SNP.” Starmer doesn’t smirk, he’s too uptight. But yes, of course this is Labour’s ideal result – a directionless, despised PM clinging on, shamed and lamed, wildly zigzagging all over the place.
• Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Bob Neill: The prime minister should step aside
You don’t have to be as avid a classicist as the prime minister to know that his victory in yesterday’s confidence vote resembles the eponymous ones of Pyrrhus of Epirus. Yes, he survived, but the facts speak for themselves: the result is worse than those inflicted on Thatcher, Major and May. In total, 41% of the parliamentary party voted against him. Take away those with government jobs and that’s equivalent to 75% of Tory backbenchers.
Recent events have significantly – and, I believe, irrevocably – damaged trust in the prime minister. There are some enormously tough decisions to take over the coming months, at home and abroad, and we need to take the country with us on those. If we are to do so, the public must have faith in government. I don’t see how that’s possible while Johnson remains at the helm.
The prime minister says we need to refocus on the challenges ahead and move on, but that can only be done if the public trusts the government. Last night’s vote shows that a considerable number of MPs don’t have confidence that Johnson is capable of rebuilding that. It gives me no pleasure in saying it, but in the interests of country and party, he should step aside.
• Bob Neill is the Conservative MP for Bromley and Chislehurst
David Lammy: Each day he splutters on will reap further havoc
There is no return for a prime minister who has lost the confidence of almost half of their own MPs. Each day that Johnson splutters on will reap further havoc on the British public and the UK’s standing abroad. He should be fixed with a laser-like precision on eye-watering energy bills, on rocketing inflation, and on Putin’s illegal war in Europe.
Instead, his attention will now be on the few dozen MPs who voted in favour of his lying and law-breaking. Every decision that Johnson will make in his last days will be about which jobs and baubles to offer these MPs to keep them on side.
We need to get Britain back on track. Not only with a new leader, but with a new government. Only Labour has a plan to restore trust in politics, to grow the economy so that we can pay for the schools and hospitals we desperately need, to restore Britain’s reputation abroad and to rebuild the alliances Johnson has damaged.
• David Lammy is the Labour MP for Tottenham and shadow foreign secretary
Devi Sridhar: He will face a reckoning for failure to lead on Covid
Politician after politician has had to be accountable for their response to the Covid-19 pandemic except Johnson. The former US president Donald Trump’s appalling response, and deliberate spread of misinformation on Twitter, was seen as one factor responsible for his November 2020 loss to Joe Biden. The king of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, said his country had “failed” to save lives given the large number of people who died compared with neighbouring countries. And the former Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga resigned after public criticism of his Covid-19 response.
Yet despite Britain having one of the highest death rates in the world in 2020 and a prime minister who has underplayed the disease at each turn, Johnson has survived again and again. He had severe Covid early on, but instead of taking the disease seriously and supporting staff in the NHS, he has instead pushed the country to “move on”, almost as if we should forget what really happened. Imagine that the NHS had sufficient staff, resources and investment to provide the same quality of care that Johnson received to everyone. How many lives could have been saved? Imagine if he had taken Covid seriously from the start, how many tens of thousands of deaths could have been prevented? The answers to those two questions alone point to a failure to lead, and to protect the British public, during a major emergency – the first job of any head of state. A reckoning will come, but it is not today.
• Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
Ed Davey: Tory MPs are now responsible for his behaviour
After months of defending the indefensible, Conservative MPs had a golden opportunity to finally put an end to Johnson’s sorry premiership. Instead they doubled down, narrowly choosing to put the career of a lying lawbreaker over the good of the country.
The scenes prior to yesterday’s no-confidence vote made clear that the Tories are headed for a civil war while this desperately weak prime minister attempts to cling on to office. This will mean a summer of discontent for the rest of us. For Johnson, the cost of living crisis and spiralling NHS waiting times are merely collateral. His entire focus is self-preservation. His selfishness is hurting our economy and harming families up and down the country.
In spite of the spinelessness of most Conservative MPs last night, what is clear beyond all recognition is that the people of Britain have lost confidence in Johnson. They recognise that he is not fit for office. So why can’t Conservative MPs? Liberal Democrats are fighting this Conservative government in seats across the country. The people of Tiverton and Honiton will speak for Britain in giving their verdict on Johnson in two weeks’ time – the Conservative party will have no choice but to listen.
• Ed Davey is leader of the Liberal Democrats
Dawn Butler: Johnson’s arrogance pervades the whole party
Last July I was booted out of the House of Commons for calling Johnson a liar – a view shared by a majority of people. Last night, Conservative MPs voted for a serial liar to hold the most prestigious office in the country. All 359 Conservative MPs voted, many by proxy. Yet when MPs pleaded with the Conservative leader of the house, Jacob Rees-Mogg, to allow MPs with long-term health conditions to vote by proxy earlier this year, we were told “No”.
As an MP recovering from cancer treatment I’ve had to miss dozens of critical votes in recent months. So have other colleagues across the House. I was allowed to be paired with a Tory but I was not allowed to have a proxy vote or vote remotely, even though we have the technology to enable this. Johnson is emblematic of the arrogance and self-interested exceptionalism of the Conservatives.
Calling out Johnson or deposing him as leader is not enough. Last year, I started a campaign to strengthen the ministerial code, to make the committee on standards – rather than the prime minister – responsible for deciding whether alleged breaches had taken place. I only need three more Tory MPs for the debate to be granted. Johnson may soon go, but the problem is deep-rooted in a party that believes it’s always one rule for them and another for the rest of us.
• Dawn Butler is the Labour MP for Brent Central
Zubaida Haque: What does the Tory party now stand for?
Of course it was inevitable. The only thing surprising about the no-confidence vote in Johnson is that it didn’t happen earlier. Since the beginning of his premiership, he has been a threat to the functioning of democracy in this country and to the rule of law; he has failed to protect vulnerable groups repeatedly during times of national crisis, yet there have been no consequences for this prime minister.
We will hear from Johnson’s supporters that he now has “a mandate to continue”. But it’s hardly a resounding victory when 148 of your own MPs say they don’t have confidence in you as their leader. A prime minister who doesn’t tell the truth matters to some.
Clearly trust and truth in politics isn’t a priority for everyone: 211 Conservative MPs said they had confidence in Johnson. I’m not sure if that tells us more about the way No 10 is run or the state of the Conservative party, but whichever way you look at it, it’s a dire reflection of this government.
Will there be a moment of introspection in the Conservative party? There’s certainly a huge gap between them and us. We made huge sacrifices during the pandemic; we’re living with 195,000 Covid deaths and 2 million people with long Covid – yet we have a tone deaf prime minister who says he would “do it again” when asked about the parties during lockdown in No 10.
When the ministers tire of defending the indefensible they might want to think about what the Conservative party now stands for. A crisis is engulfing the country. Tens of thousands of households are being pushed towards food banks and poverty. Yet the only thing that appears to be concerning the party in government is the preservation of a lying leader who squandered public trust. Are those the priorities of the Conservative party now?
• Dr Zubaida Haque is the executive director of The Equality Trust
