{"id":22762,"date":"2022-06-01T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T08:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=22762"},"modified":"2022-06-01T08:00:07","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T08:00:07","slug":"uk-more-tory-mps-mounts-no-confidence-vote-in-a-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2022\/06\/01\/uk-more-tory-mps-mounts-no-confidence-vote-in-a-prime-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"UK: More Tory MPs mounts no-confidence vote in a prime minister"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

Boris Johnson and his allies have launched an emergency effort to lobby wavering MPs as he faces the spiralling threat of a confidence vote in his leadership that could put his position under threat within days.<\/p>\n

By Tuesday night, at least 44 Tory MPs had publicly questioned Johnson\u2019s fitness to hold office, including 18 who are known to have sent letters to Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers, to formally seek a\u00a0confidence vote.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The remainder have openly called for the prime minister to resign or said they had lost faith in his leadership.<\/p>\n

The growing rank of public critics was joined on Tuesday by Andrea Leadsom, the former cabinet minister, saying there had been a \u201cfailure of leadership\u201d inside No 10. Two further MPs, both of whom hold government posts and so have not spoken publicly, are also known to have submitted letters.<\/p>\n

Separately, the Guardian has seen letters to constituents or public statements from at least 35 further MPs that suggest they are\u00a0openly questioning the prime minister\u2019s future, or express deep disquiet at events in No 10 \u2013 including ex-ministers Richard Graham and Mark Garnier, and the 2019 MP Anthony Browne.<\/p>\n

Browne, who told constituents he had lost his mother during the pandemic, said he was \u201cdismayed by the behaviour shown by the PM and senior staff at No 10, and concur that there was a poor culture and a failure of senior leadership, both political and official. It is right they must bear responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garnier said that some would \u201cquestion the probity of the Met and how their view on what happened seems to differ from what appears in released photographs\u201d but suggested he would wait for an inquiry by the Commons privileges committee\u00a0to report back\u00a0on whether Johnson had misled MPs.<\/p>\n

Graham told constituents he would not be issuing a new statement until the privileges report was over \u2013 and would not reveal whether he would send a letter. But he said other colleagues had decided the PM had misled parliament and should resign, and \u201cI respect their views\u201d.<\/p>\n

Under Conservative rules, if 15% of the parliamentary party, amounting to 54 MPs, send letters to Brady then this triggers a confidence vote. Johnson would then need to win the backing of 180 MPs \u2013 half the parliamentary party plus one \u2013 to remain in office.<\/p>\n

Brady declined to comment on Tuesday about whether it was close to the threshold. \u201cYou can always ask,\u201d he told BBC News. \u201cI say to people they are very free to do that, and I shall retain my discretion. I can say nothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is, nonetheless, increasing expectation that enough letters have arrived or will soon be sent for a confidence vote next week, or otherwise this could happen should the\u00a0Conservatives\u00a0perform badly in two key byelections next month.<\/p>\n

While it is possible Brady could announce a confidence vote during the current parliamentary recess, senior Tory sources have suggested Brady would hold off until after the Queen\u2019s platinum jubilee weekend.<\/p>\n

As the sense of crisis deepened inside No 10, Conservative whips began phoning MPs to try to secure their support. Reports said Johnson had also done this, hinting at possible promotion \u2013 although one Downing Street source claimed he was \u201ctoo busy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Leadsom, who served as business secretary under Johnson, published a letter to constituents saying last week\u2019s report into lockdown-breaching parties inside Downing Street showed \u201csignificant failures of leadership, both political and official\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach of my Conservative MP colleagues and I must now decide individually on what is the right course of action that will restore confidence in our government,\u201d she argued.<\/p>\n

Also on Tuesday, John Stevenson, the MP for Carlisle, said he had added his name to those writing to Brady.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cSadly the prime minister appears to be unwilling to bring matters to a head and submit himself to a vote. Therefore the only option is for Conservative MPs to facilitate a vote of confidence. I have already taken the appropriate action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter \u2013 every weekday morning at 7am BST<\/p>\n

Opponents have already begun seeking to convince enough MPs to vote against Johnson if a confidence votes does happen, arguing that if the prime minister secured a narrow win he would either limp towards election defeat or risk a snap poll. \u201cWe need to get to 160 or he\u2019ll destroy all our electoral hopes,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n

Amid the fallout from last week\u2019s Sue Gray\u2019s report into No 10 parties, Johnson wrote to his independent adviser on the ministerial code, Lord Geidt, to say that as the arbiter of the code, he did not believe he had breached it by being fined for attending his birthday party.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn relation to the fixed penalty notice for my attendance in the cabinet room on 19 June 2020, I believe that, taking account of all the circumstances,\u00a0I did not breach the code,\u201d Johnson wrote, adding that the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who was fined for the same event, was also in the clear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

source:jessica elgot<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boris Johnson and his allies have launched an emergency effort to lobby wavering MPs as he faces the spiralling threat of a confidence vote in his leadership that could put his position under threat within days. By Tuesday night, at least 44 Tory MPs had publicly questioned Johnson\u2019s fitness to hold office, including 18 who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":22763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[7273,2829,2735,2701,8713,5090,157,3782,8349,1425,7823,10000,2512,8440,3513,10391,6718,685,911,3577,2264,9974,8235,5822,10634,6864,278,2402,11973,5485,1198,2627,10917,3174,5652,3927,8297,5266,5807,912,11325,10033,8302,255,12605,3080,6876,12790,3954,594],"class_list":["post-22762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","tag-anthony","tag-backbenchers","tag-bbc","tag-behaviour","tag-birthday","tag-boris","tag-boris-johnson","tag-cabinet","tag-cabinet-minister","tag-chancellor","tag-code","tag-conservative","tag-conservatives","tag-crisis","tag-culture","tag-declined","tag-downing","tag-downing-street","tag-election","tag-future","tag-government","tag-leadership","tag-lockdown","tag-lord-geidt","tag-lost","tag-ministers","tag-mp","tag-mps","tag-one","tag-pandemic","tag-parliament","tag-pm","tag-poor","tag-prime-minister","tag-privileges-committee","tag-queen","tag-resign","tag-rishi-sunak","tag-risk","tag-snap","tag-street","tag-sue-gray","tag-sunak","tag-tory","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vote-of-no-confidence","tag-weekend","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}