Boris Johnson may have been cast by his supporters as a “big dog” – but many of his fellow Tory MPs see themselves as frogs.
They use the analogy of the amphibian which, placed in a pot of boiling water, would immediately leap out – but finds itself withstanding incredibly high temperatures if the heat is turned up more slowly. In this case, the gradually rising temperature is the drip-drip of sleaze, cost of living crises and Downing Street parties.
So on Monday it was with a heavy heart that some MPs admitted they had finally reached boiling point with “partygate”, unable to contain their rage at a dozen lockdown gatherings being investigated by the Metropolitan police and a redacted official report.
A string of former cabinet ministers – and Johnson’s predecessor as prime minister – lined up in the Commons to publicly unleash their views on a Downing Street operation criticised by Sue Gray’s report for its “serious failure” to observe strict lockdown laws.
The mood was combative. One MP described it as like a “boxing match”, another said “tribalism” had set in and Johnson was starting to be better propped up by his backbenchers.
But however many impassioned speeches were made in defence of his Brexit credentials, the Covid vaccine rollout or commitment to “levelling up”, Johnson was wounded multiple times by interventions by some heavy hitters in the party.
Theresa May, who tends to deliver sparse but withering attacks on Johnson, said people “had a right to expect their prime minister to have read the rules, to understand the meaning of the rules” and “set an example”.
She believed Gray’s report was clear No 10 “was not observing the regulations they had imposed on members of the public” and accused Johnson of either not understanding the rules or believing they did not apply to his team. “Which was it?” she asked.
Other grandees who took aim at Johnson included two former chief whips. The first, an emotional Andrew Mitchell, said he had given Johnson his “full-throated support” for 30 years but confessed to being “deeply concerned” by the prime minister’s previous denials of any wrongdoing at the dispatch box.
Recalling a private conversation he had with Johnson 10 days earlier, Mitchell said he had told the prime minister “he should think very carefully about what was now in the best interests of our country and of the Conservative party” and added: “I have to tell him he no longer enjoys my support.”
Mark Harper, another Tory MP who was once in charge of party discipline, said many people had questioned Johnson’s “honesty, integrity and fitness to hold that office”.
His insistence that Johnson publish the full Gray report once the Met’s criminal inquiry has concluded was shared widely by other backbenchers, and led the government to U-turn in a matter of hours.
Although the nearly 90-minute debate was often raucous and punctuated by cheers and brays, silence was observed for a speech made by Aaron Bell. He talked of attending his grandmother’s funeral in May 2020 – when two gatherings investigated by Gray happened in No 10, one of which is being probed by police.
Bell recalled the “wonderful woman” whose funeral in Kent, with only 10 people, was a three-hour drive from Staffordshire. All other mourners had to watch online. “I didn’t hug my siblings, I didn’t hug my parents, I gave the eulogy and then afterwards I didn’t even go to her house for a cup of tea,” Bell said. “Does the prime minister think I’m a fool?”
Although Johnson managed to avoid the resignations that helped bring down May’s administration, he did suffer one MP quitting as a ministerial aide. Angela Richardson, a parliamentary private secretary to Michael Gove, wrote in a social media post that she felt “deep disappointment” it had “taken so long” to get an acknowledgment of wrongdoing and an apology.
Despite the challenging attacks from colleagues, it was still unclear if enough MPs would write no-confidence letters to trigger a ballot on Johnson’s future. Behind the scenes, Tory backbenchers said they thought Johnson had been in a weaker position the day before Christian Wakeford’s defection to Labour.
One senior Conservative called Johnson a “bastard” who would “probably wiggle off the hook”. A backbencher, part of the so-called “pork pie plotters”, appeared in retreat, conceding the struggle to oust the prime minister was now a “long-game” and adding there “won’t be a queue” outside the office of Sir Graham Brady, the holder of no-confidence letters.
Another MP said Gray’s pared-back report “looks like a smoking gun, but we’ll be waiting a while for the coroner”.
While Johnson tried to shore up support on Monday night, he chose to address all MPs rather than only backbenchers as usual. A Tory source drily noted: “I’d want the moral support of the payroll if I was Boris having to face down the backbenchers right now.”
