British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie Johnson arrive for the Platinum Jubilee concert taking place in front of Buckingham Palace. Photo / AP
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie Johnson arrive for the Platinum Jubilee concert taking place in front of Buckingham Palace. Photo / AP
Boris Johnson will face a crunch leadership vote overnight that could see him dumped as Prime Minister after being challenged by "rebels" within his governing Conservative Party.
Party official Graham Brady says he has received enough letters from MPs demanding a vote on Johnson's leadership to trigger one. That happens if 54 Tory MPs write to Brady.
The vote will occur between 6pm-8pm in the UK (5am-7am).
If Johnson loses the vote among the 359 Conservative MPs, he will be replaced as Conservative leader and Prime Minister. If he wins, he will be safe from another challenge for a year.
Claims that Johnson and his staff enjoyed illegal office parties while millions in the country stuck to strict Covid-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021 have dogged Johnson's Conservative government since they first surfaced late last year. Critics, including some within Johnson's own ranks, have called for him to resign.
But while "partygate" threatened to topple Johnson's leadership earlier this year, he has clung on to power partly because Russia's invasion of Ukraine diverted public and political attention.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson to face vote of no confidence - Tory MPs have just been sent this 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/xe4hza3khl
Johnson has apologised after being fine £50 ($96) for attending a surprise birthday party thrown for him in 10 Downing St in June 2020. That made him the first British Prime Minister ever found to have broken the law while in office.
However, Johnson insisted that he did not knowingly break the rules, saying "it did not occur to me" that the brief gathering was a party — a claim that drew derision from many.
As recently as the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebration this weekend, Johnson was seen being booed by crowds outside St Paul's cathedral in London.
The PM has vowed to fight tooth and nail to squash the revolt and stay in Downing Street.
The Sun understands he will write to all backbenchers within his party insisting it would be "destructive, decisive and distracting" to change leader now.
Cabinet Minister Sajid Javid said this morning in the UK that the PM "will fight his corner with a very, very strong case."
Shortly before the announcement Jesse Norman, the MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, posted on Twitter a letter he sent to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee expressing his dissatisfaction with Johnson and withdrawing of his support for him.
I have supported Boris Johnson for 15 years, for the London Mayoralty and for PM. Very sadly, I have written to him to say I can no longer do so, for the reasons set out below. pic.twitter.com/0Mjs4hjeSF
In the post Norman wrote: "People are crying out for good government ... neither the Conservative Party nor this country can afford to squander the next two years adrift and distracted by endless debate about you and your leadership.
"For you to prolong this charade by remaining in office not only insults the electorate, and the tens of thousands of people who support, volunteer, represent and campaign for our party; it makes a decisive change of government at the next election much more likely. That is potentially catastrophic for this country."
Meanwhile, The Telegraph reported that Johnson's allies have warned that there could be an early general election as they attempt to convince wavering Tory MPs not to submit letters of no confidence.
In recent weeks, the Prime Minister's advisers have let it be known that an election next year – or even sooner – is a possibility as he mulls his political future.
The message is seen by some Tory insiders as a coded warning that those who turn against Johnson may lose his support when they seek re-selection by local parties.
Johnson speaks during a press conference in Downing Street, London, in May. Photo / AP
David Canzini, a senior political adviser in Downing Street, last month told around 80 Tory MPs facing tight re-election battles to be ready for a poll as early as next autumn.
But whether Johnson would call a snap election as the cost of living crisis bites and with a sizeable polling deficit to Labour – when he could wait until 2024 – remains unclear.
Some Tory rebels are using the prospect of an election sooner than expected to convince waverers the other way, pointing to Johnson's poor poll ratings.
A one-page briefing note being pushed by some Tory MP critics over the weekend declares that Johnson is "no longer an electoral asset".
Its 14 bullet points include reference to an opinion poll that found a quarter of Conservative voters wanted Johnson to resign and a claim that partygate is "not going away". The origins of the note – or how widely it is being shared – are unclear, but its existence was leaked to the media on Sunday.
Chairman of the Conservative 1922 committee Sir Graham Brady says the 54-letter threshold has been passed and a vote of confidence in Boris Johnson will take place this evening.
Johnson and his wife Carrie Johnson attend the National Service of Thanksgiving. Photo / AP
Johnson, left, reacts as he sits next to his wife Carrie Johnson, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Home Secretary Priti Patel, right. Photo / AP
But he is now the Cabinet minister with the lowest approval rating, according to members of his own party, and the Tories have trailed Labour for more than half a year, meaning his ability to win the next election has become a talking point.
It is possible that Johnson will face a confidence vote as early as Monday, with MPs returning to Parliament after a recess that overlapped with the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
Downing Street figures and Tory rebels believe the number of no confidence letters submitted to the 1922 committee could be close to, or even above, the 54 needed to automatically trigger the vote, though they also admit to being in the dark.
A demonstrator holds a placard depicting Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson while attending a workers protest outside the gates of Downing Street in May. Photo / AP
Only Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the committee, knows the tally for sure. If the threshold had been met but he was waiting for the Jubilee celebrations to be over before announcing it, Monday would be the earliest point for him to do so.
Johnson is lining up a host of policy announcements in the next fortnight as he seeks to move the conversation on from partygate, including an expansion of Margaret Thatcher's "Right to Buy" policy – a move first revealed by The Telegraph.
An opinion poll published over the weekend showed the Tories could lose the Wakefield by-election by 20 points, having won the seat in December 2019.
Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, on Sunday predicted that there would not be a confidence vote this week and downplayed the significance of negative polling.
He told the BBC: "In the round, when people judge Government by the general election rather than mid-term, where it's not unusual to see polling like this, actually people make a decision about whether you've delivered and done a good for the country as a whole."
