Tory MPs have blocked an attempt to force an early general election after Boris Johnson was "forced out in disgrace".
Despite calls for him to resign en-masse earlier this month, Conservative Party MPs rallied behind the Prime Minister this evening - backing his leadership in a confidence vote.
Backing calls for an election, Newcastle MP Chi Onwurah said this was now "a vampire Government, effectively dead but still continuing to suck the lifeblood from my constituents".
Mr Johnson used the vote to run through what he perceived to be his greatest hits in office, speaking at length about Brexit, support for Ukraine and his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic amid furious heckling from the Labour benches.
Mr Johnson said: “We got Brexit done and though the rejoiners and the revengers were left plotting and planning and biding their time – and I’ll have more to say about the events of the last few weeks and months in due course – we delivered on every single one of our promises.”
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The Prime Minister turned to the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming: “A pandemic that was global, whose origins we do not fully understand but were nothing to do with the British people, and if anything the result of distant misbehaviour involving bats or pangolins, and whose spread was appallingly difficult to manage, and this Government never gave up through wave after wave.”
Mr Johnson praised the “resilience of the British people” in protecting the NHS, with one Labour MP heard shouting: “You partied in Downing Street.”
He also spoke about his flight in a Typhoon fighter jet last week, before adding on the Tory leadership: “After three dynamic and exhilarating years in the cockpit, we will find a new leader and we will coalesce in loyalty around him or her.
“And the vast twin Rolls-Royce engines of our Tory message, our Conservative values, will roar on – strong public services on the left, and a dynamic free market enterprise economy on the right, each boosting the other and developing trillions of pounds of thrust.
“The reason we keep winning is we’re the only party that understands the need for both. Whatever happens in this contest we will continue to fight for the lowest possible taxes and the lightest possible regulation.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer responded saying: “The delusion is never ending. What a relief for the country that they finally got round to sacking him.
“And in many ways the chaos of the last fortnight is familiar. The third Tory leadership contest in six years. The latest bumper summer for graphic designers and brand managers. The latest parade of pretenders promising unfunded tax cuts.
“The latest set of ministerial jobs handed out on a wink and a shake in return for a nomination. And TV debates so embarrassing that even the contestants are pulling out.
“Every other year they switch out a failed prime minister.”
He added: "He has been forced out in disgrace. Judged by his colleagues and peers to be unworthy of his position and unfit for his office.
"He promoted someone he knew to be a sexual predator, and then denied all knowledge when that inevitably went wrong.
"He lied to his Ministers about what he knew and allowed them to repeat those lies to the country.
"It’s the same pattern of behaviour that we saw when he and his mates partied through lockdown, denied it for months and forced his Ministers to repeat those lies until he was found out.
"He can’t change."
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