Nicola Sturgeon has accused Boris Johnson of being a "danger to democracy" after the Prime Minister was left clinging to his job amid a Tory party revolt.
The First Minister described the Conservative leader as someone who did not play "by the normal rules of politics" and would otherwise be pushed out in a matter of weeks by his MPs.
The SNP leader spoke out against Johnson on Tuesday evening after opening the new headquarters of the Scottish Trades Union Congress in the east end of Glasgow.
It comes after some Conservatives hinted the PM could choose to call an early general election in an attempt to silence his party critics.
Asked by the Record if she thought a snap poll was likely, the First Minister said: "If Boris Johnson calls an election it's because he knows he's finished - and he wants to take everybody in his party down with him.
"Do I believe Boris Johnson is capable of such a selfish act? Yes I do - and that is something his own party should be thinking of.
"I don't think there should be a snap general election - but if there is, my party will fight it."
Asked how long she thought Johnson could remain in office, she added: "I thought for a long time it was a question of when, not if, he departs No 10.
"Under the normal laws of politics you could count his longevity in days or weeks not months.
"But he is not someone who is prepared to play by the normal rules of politics and that is part of the problem.
"He is ripping up all of the conventions that underpin our democracy.
"That's what makes him, on one level, for a lot of people, a bit of a figure of fun - but actually very dangerous to the health of democracy here.
"I'm not in control of when he leaves No 10. If I was, he would have been long gone.
"But his own party, as they failed to do last night, really need to ask themselves some serious questions about whether they are prepared to continue to sacrifice the interests of the UK and the very foundations of our democracy on the altar of preserving Boris Johnson."
Meanwhile, Gordon Brown made fun of Johnson while addressing a meeting of the Royal College of Nursing in Glasgow earlier on Tuesday.
The former Labour leader told the profession that there had been three Prime Ministers since he last spoke to them before cheekily adding “at least three Prime Ministers”.
Recounting a story about the 60th anniversary of the NHS, Brown told how the singer Lesley Garrett, whose husband is a doctor, had wanted to sing The Impossible Dream durinng a Westminster Abbey service to mark the occasion but she was prevented from doing so by a decision only to have hymns sung in church.
Brown remarked: “So I said, come to Downing Street and we’ll invite the nurses who were there at the opening of the health service in 1948 and we will have a party.
“Now this was a Downing Street party.
“Obviously we didn’t bring in sackloads of beer or cases of beer, we didn’t find it to be illegal and we didn’t have fixed penalty notices as a result.”
Brown was asked by conference chair BJ Waltho how best if she met Johnson she could pressure him into delivering on pay and conditions for nurses.
The former PM told her: “I have met Boris on many occasions and when you go into a room with him the first thing he does is tell the civil servants to leave.
“And you think you are having a face to face individual chat but the reason he wants then to leave is that nobody knows what has been said, no-one knows what he has promised. And what he has promised will never materialise.”
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