Well, that went pretty badly for the prime minister. (I’d say nobody saw it coming, except that this guy precisely did.) Yesterday began with allies of Boris Johnson expecting to keep the number of Conservatives going against their leader in the ballot below 100; it ended with dazed members of his fraying coalition being wheeled out to insist that 148 MPs saying they had no confidence in Johnson’s leadership, a result roughly on a par with that which did for Margaret Thatcher, was a resounding success.
By any halfway objective view, this is implausible, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be hearing a lot of it. Today’s newsletter will run through the talking points and the reality as Westminster reacts to last night’s hugely consequential vote. That’s right after the headlines – and do head to the website for the very latest this morning.
Five big stories
Partygate | Boris Johnson was clinging to his premiership on Monday night after 148 of his MPs voted to oust him from Downing Street in a ballot that exposed potentially fatal rifts within his party.
Media | Fears are growing over the safety of a British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert who have disappeared in a remote corner of the Amazon days after receiving threats. Dom Phillips, a longtime Guardian contributor, and Bruno Araújo Pereira were last seen in the Javari region of Amazonas state.
Ukraine | Ukraine needs 60 multiple rocket launchers – many more than the handful promised by the UK and US – to have a chance of defeating Russia, an aide to the country’s presidency said. It meanwhile emerged that Volodymyr Zelenskiy had visited nearby frontlines on Sunday.
Catholicism | Rumours swirling that Pope Francis might retire have been fuelled by news that he will attend a feast initiated by a 13th-century pope who himself resigned. Speculation was prompted in early May when he used a wheelchair in public for the first time.
Social media | Elon Musk accused Twitter of a “material breach” of his $44bn (£35bn) agreement to buy the company and threatened to terminate the deal. The news is the clearest indication yet that the world’s richest man is preparing to walk away from the takeover.
In depth: ‘They are a bunch of lying snakes’
In the middle of Monday’s battle for Tory hearts and minds, one cabinet minister was diligently composing their supportive tweet on a train – only, as Jessica Elgot’s account of the day reveals, to panic as they entered a long tunnel. Theresa May turned up to vote in a ball gown. Andy Sparrow, in his incident-packed live blog from outside the voting room, overheard Jeremy Hunt reminiscing about his appearance at the Hay literary festival. Dominic Raab jumped the queue.
If all of this has an edge of pantomime, it has nothing on the spinning that followed. (It wouldn’t be long until an MP accused the BBC of trying to make Boris Johnson look like Hannibal Lecter.) As farcical as the circus might appear, it’s also the best index we have of the arguments available to the prime minister as he seeks to stay in office, and, therefore, how likely he is to succeed in doing so.
Here are some of the lines being taken, and the weaknesses they seek to disguise:
***
The result draws a line under this
This is less an argument than a mood. “Time to get back to the job of governing,” said culture minister Nadine Dorries, a kind of presiding spirit over everything that follows. “Now it’s time to draw a line under this,” said the Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies. “We draw a line and we move on,” said education secretary Nadhim Zahawi. Etcetera.
In this approach, Johnson’s loyalists were echoing a No 10 spokesperson, who said earlier that the vote would “allow the Government to draw a line and move on”. But consider the Sun’s front page, which described a “night of the blond knives”, or that of the Daily Telegraph, which went with the bleak declaration “Hollow victory tears Tories apart”. Consider two ominous byelections still to come this month, or the prospect of an investigation into the prime minister’s conduct by the parliamentary privileges committee.
Or consider the response of Sir Roger Gale, a leading critic of Boris Johnson, who told Sky News after the result: “I will support the [government’s] legislation, but don’t expect me to support this prime minister. I cannot do that.” Attempts to manifest an end to the crisis require buy-in from people like Gale. Telling the waves he’d drawn a line under them didn’t get King Canute anywhere, after all.
***
A win by one vote is enough
The origin of this claim might be the sense that Johnson’s critics have been stymied by the failure of a single candidate to emerge as frontrunner, as you might intuit from Rowena Mason’s analysis of the runners and riders. Thus Jacob Rees-Mogg, who said that “one [vote] is enough”.
A considerable number of social media users enjoyed pointing out that when it was Theresa May on the ballot, Rees-Mogg had described a better result than the one Johnson achieved as “terrible”. A cousin of this argument doing the rounds last night was the claim, made by Johnson and others, that he had “won a far greater mandate” than in his leadership election victory because he had got 59% this time against 51% then.
But when Johnson ran to be leader, he achieved that 51% in a field of three with no prime ministerial clout and no taboo choices on the table – an obviously incomparable situation. Holding the line on this one requires the ability, ably demonstrated by Shailesh Vara MP, to say two contradictory things in quick succession without missing a beat.
***
It’s time for party unity
Another aspiration disguised as an answer. “Now we need to unite,” said Sajid Javid. Johnson himself said that it would now be possible to “move on to unite and focus on delivery”. Etcetera.
The prospects for this new Tory unanimity were not obvious from either the vote count or the mood music, though. We don’t know if every member of the government backed Johnson but, if so, that would mean about 75% of backbenchers want rid of their leader. Just about the only unity visible is that between elements of several factions – one nation Tories, the 2019 red wall intake, a majority of Scottish MPs – that Johnson has to go.
Meanwhile, Nadine Dorries (hi again!) called Jeremy Hunt “inadequate”, duplicitous, and “wrong about almost everything” after he called for Johnson’s removal. Sir Charles Walker told Channel 4 he now expected “guerrilla war”. Aubrey Allegretti reports on allies of the PM who want “hard and fast retribution” against ministers who fail a loyalty test, because exactly what Johnson needs is more people with an axe to grind. And one ally of Johnson’s gave Newsnight’s Nick Watt an immortal quote about Tory MPs: “They are a bunch of lying snakes. I don’t trust anything they say.”
As displays of unity go, it’s not quite the platinum jubilee. William Hague laid out what he sees as the reality of his divided party in the Times (£): “They should either reconcile themselves to Johnson and get behind him or decisively eject him and move on to a new leader. It does not seem they have done either.”
***
This is not a moment for trivia
“What do you think President Zelenskiy will be thinking tonight?” asked Nadhim Zahawi, perhaps unaware that he had been visiting Ukrainian troops on the frontline. “He will be punching the air.” Scott Benton, the MP for Blackpool South, sniffed that “My constituents don’t care about the tittle-tattle in Westminster.” Several outlets report a senior Tory party source asking journalists: “Who here doesn’t like a glass of wine to decompress?” (John Crace put his hand up.)
James Cleverly, the Foreign Office minister, likewise suggested that “the country would rightly be very, very upset” if Johnson were now to be removed. But any number of on-the-ground pieces and polls suggest many voters view whatever trivia there is in the air to be the fault of the prime minister himself. As one voter told Helen Pidd in Bury: “I think [Johnson] has been an absolute fool. You can’t defend him.”
***
He’s still a winner
One more outing for Dorries, who said: “The person Starmer doesn’t want to face at an election is Boris Johnson.” That echoed Johnson’s own plea to his backbenchers at the 1922 Committee, where he urged them to recognise that they had won “the biggest electoral victory for the Conservatives for 40 years under my leadership”.
This kind of appeal to MPs’ self-interest appears to have had less impact on many of their calculations than what their own constituents told them. Meanwhile, the year-long grace period that Johnson has earned will appear little more than a technicality if members of the government start to resign en masse, a process which the Daily Telegraph reported could begin today.
At the moment, the prime minister appears determined to believe he has bottled the mood of discontent at his leadership. But he keeps shaking it, and he can only keep his thumb on the cork for so long.
What else we’ve been reading
Stories of war and conflict are almost impossible to avoid – in this week’s Big Idea, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, asks if a world without violence is possible. “We are bound to make mistakes, to do bad things, to hurt others. That is the nature of being human,” writes Welby, “but there is always hope in the possibility of making whole what we have broken.” Nimo
Loads of good telly in this guide to the best shows of the year so far, which cannot possibly be bad if it features Severance, Station Eleven and This Is Going to Hurt. There are more great recommendations in the comments if you’re somehow running out. Archie
Martin Scorsese recalls his time working with Ray Liotta on Goodfellas, remembering the late actor as a seismic force – the new guy in a movie filled with old friends and yet talented enough to take the starring role. Nimo
French journalist Fabrice Arfi’s piece on the response of the country’s police and politicians to the chaos at the Champions League final provides a lot of shocking context to what unfolded that day. “The world finally knows that there exists a country where people who cause no trouble … can be teargassed and abused by police for no justifiable reason,” he writes. Archie
After Kate Bush made a rare public intervention to praise the use of her music in the Netflix hit Stranger Things, Alexis Petridis’ hymn to “a completely unbiddable artist” will delight her legion of fans. His 10 suggestions for new listeners will surely add to them. Archie
Sport
Football | Gareth Southgate said the racial abuse suffered by players who missed penalties in the Euro 2020 final adds “another layer of difficulty” to preparations for shootouts at major tournaments. Southgate said he had asked himself: ““Have I created this situation here for the boys?”
Golf | Phil Mickelson confirmed he will play in the first event of the Saudi Arabia‑backed LIV Golf Series. The six-time major winner had stepped away from the public eye after acknowledging Saudi Arabia’s human rights record but said he was willing to overlook it.
Football | The Canadian men’s team refused to play in a friendly against Panama amid an escalating dispute over World Cup bonuses. In March the team prompted national euphoria by qualifying for the competition for the second time ever.
The front pages
“A wounded victor”, says the Times, alongside a picture of Johnson being driven back from the Commons to Downing Street. The Daily Telegraph’s front-page headline says “Hollow victory tears Tories apart” with a secondary headline saying Johnson’s authority has been “crushed”. The Financial Times has “Johnson wounded in confidence vote as 41% of Tory MPs rebel”. The Mirror proclaims “Party’s over, Boris” and says that the prime minister has suffered a “brutal attack” by his own side “and is warned that he will be out in a year”. The Guardian’s splash says “PM clinging to power after vote humiliation”, with columnist Martin Kettle writing: “He is irreparably damaged. Politicians don’t recover from such things.” The i’s front page says “Wounded Johnson in peril”. The Metro has “The party is over Boris”. The PM still has some defiant backing from his cheerleaders in the national papers. The Mail’s main headline says “Boris vows: I’ll bash on”. The Express has: “Defiant and unbowed … Boris: I’ll lead party to victory”. The Sun’s splash is “Night of the blond knives”, saying that Johnson has been “stabbed in the back by 148 MPs”.
Today in Focus
Boris Johnson’s narrow vote of confidence
Boris Johnson won a vote of confidence yesterday – but he suffered a massive rebellion from parliamentary colleagues. Political correspondent Peter Walker explains what happens now
Cartoon of the day | Steve Bell
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
In April, the Guardian’s Luke Harding wrote in Kyiv about an edition of commemorative stamps being sold as a symbol of Ukrainian defiance. The stamps feature an image of a Ukrainian soldier telling the flagship Russian cruiser Moskva “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!” when asked to surrender. (The stamp tactfully left out the expletive.) As well as covering the story, Harding picked up a sought-after set of 12. Now those stamps are being sold for thousands around the world – and 12 Guardian readers will each get one of Harding’s in a blind auction to benefit the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. “The stamp is a bit of a paper. But take a look at the queue,” one Ukrainian who bought a set, Natalie Tkachenko, told Harding. “It may be small but it’s powerful. Just like Ukraine.” Click here to make your bid.
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
