Boris Johnson is fighting for his survival as Prime Minister (Leon Neal/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)Boris Johnson is likely to face fresh moves to topple him if he is found to have knowingly misled Parliament over No10 parties rather than if the Tories suffer defeats in two looming by-elections, polling expert Sir John Curtice said on Tuesday.
The Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University does not believe that the confidence vote, which the Prime Minister won by 211 to 148 votes, will necessarily change his public popularity either way.
Mr Johnson appears to be retaining the support of his Cabinet as he seeks to stay in office.
But he faces by-elections in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, and in Honiton and Tiverton, Devon, on June 23.
“Wakefield is probably a lost cause,” Sir John told Times Radio.
“The Conservatives were 17-points behind Labour in the local elections there.
“Honiton and Tiverton, I think, much closer, that is the pivotal one because the Liberal Democrats are trying to come at it from third place, albeit they did that in North Shropshire.
“I would doubt if the by-elections in themselves are going to be an event that precipitates another challenge.
“What I would look at are 1) if Sir Keir Starmer has to resign as Labour leader that could raise questions but probably the biggest issue now is what comes out of the Privileges Committee of the House of Commons.
“If they are critical of the Prime Minister, if they certainly suggest that he did attempt to mislead the House of Commons (over No10 parties) I would have thought in those circumstances it would be difficult for him to survive.”
Mr Johnson saw 41 per cent of Tory MPs rebel against him, compared to 37 per cent who did against Theresa May in a confidence vote in December 2018, and she was gone from No10 within months.
“A fundamental difference (compared to Theresa May) at the moment is it does look like as though we have got a Cabinet that remains loyal to him,” said Sir John.
However, he added: “One of the considerations that perhaps some members of the Cabinet will eventually have to think about is for how long can they dare to continue to hitch themselves to a wagon which may be running out of road if they themselves do not wish to damage their own leadership prospects and perhaps ultimately in terms of calculation of political futures for some members of the Cabinet that might in the end be the crucial consideration.”
Sir John described confidence votes as a “symptom” of a Prime Minister’s political situation and they may not impact on their poll ratings.
“It’s not clear that holding a leadership ballot necessarily has much impact on the popularity of a Prime Minister,” he explained.
“Boris Johnson is pretty unpopular, he is much more unpopular than Theresa May was when she faced a leadership ballot.
“I doubt if we are going to see much in the way of recovery but equally I’m not sure that we are going to see much of a downturn either.
“Certainly, therefore perhaps Tory MPs who are concerned about where they are at should not necessarily assume that things are going to get any worse but equally 10 Downing Street need to be aware that there is absolutely no guarantee at all that the public will decide to move on and that this is all over.”
He also highlighted the situation currently facing the Conservatives in mid-term, often a low point for political parties in Government.
“The truth is that being seven points behind Labour in the polls, as opposed to the 13 point lead they had last time, you are talking about one in three Conservative MPs potentially losing their seats,” he said.
Many of the rebels were from the centre and Left of the party, but Sir John stressed they also included Brexiteers.
“What is clear is that some Conservative MPs voted against Boris Johnson on grounds of principle...ie they do not think that his actions as Prime Minister have been ethically acceptable,” he said.
“Interestingly, that is the view that seems to be particularly common among some of the more prominent of the pro-Leave MPs who were once Boris Johnson’s allies, the people who voted for Brexit on grounds of sovereignty and they wanted a Parliament to be a powerful institution.”
As to whether Mr Johnson could lead the Tories to a victory at the next General Election, the polling expert said: “It’s possible if the Government resolves the cost-of-living crisis, they can persuade the public that Brexit is a success etc...however, the problem is that if indeed as seems to be the case that 75 per cent of the public, to put not too fine a point on it, think that Boris Johnson has been a liar over partygate, will they be willing to trust him on these other issues..so even if the Government has success, will it be able successfully to sell that to the public at least under the current leadership, that I think is the 64,000 dollar question.
“There is no certainty about Boris Johnson’s future.”
