Boris Johnson faced the greatest threat to his premiership yet after the necessary 54 Tory MPs triggered the parliamentary party’s vote of no confidence on Monday, after the long-simmering Partygate scandal saw Platinum Jubilee crowds jeer him over the weekend. Analysts did expect him to win the necessary majority of Conservative MPs for now – 211 voted in Johnson’s favour on Monday evening, 148 against – but said the vote itself likely signalled a looming departure from Downing Street.
One of the great poets of the English Renaissance, John Dryden, wrote that “even victors by their victories are undone”. Such could well be the case for Boris Johnson.
