It was a vote the Prime Minister was desperate to avoid.
And as it happens, one of the things Boris Johnson wants to quickly put behind him, is calling for a vote as soon as possible after the trigger threshold is reached (54 letters of no confidence), and then “Determining” and “persuasive” result statements once it is over.
Mr Johnson is a clear leader that he won and the one who wants to draw a line under this whole sorry story and move on.
But the Prime Minister also knew, despite his courage, that 148 MPs declared no confidence in his leadership was a fatal blow.
His supporters are personally frustrated, and so they should be. Boris Johnson’s victory on Monday was less convincing than Theresa May’s vote of confidence in 2018 when she commanded the support of 63% of her MPs compared with 59% of the current Prime Minister. . Six months after that vote, Mrs May was forced to resign.
To really have any hope of turning things around on Monday, the Prime Minister will need a bigger backing than this.
Others pointed out that, while the Prime Minister survived the vote, protection was not guaranteed. Although under current rules a benched Prime Minister does not face another challenge for 12 months, there is nothing stopping MPs from sending a letter again and asking the committee chairperson In 1922, Sir Graham Brady changed the rules if the situation deteriorated significantly in the coming months. Such a move has been considered before.
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PM ‘doesn’t care’ about snap elections
But perhaps the key question is how sustainable Mr. Johnson’s leadership is now, regardless of the Conservative Party’s specific rules.
Letting your own 148 MPs decide they don’t trust you matters, whether it meets the action threshold or not.
How will the Prime Minister run his government program if even a section of the rebels decide to go on strike? Forty mass insurgents were enough to usurp the prime minister’s majority in the House of Commons, and with the prime minister’s ability to pass any legislation.
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Gale: Prime Minister should consider his position
The only thing this vote has really settled on is the contours of the Conservatives’ internal civil war. The insurgents weren’t squealing with excitement, with one very senior figure telling me shortly after the vote that now was “time for the cabinet to show some leadership and realize that the game was for the Prime Minister”.
Mr Johnson won that resounding victory two and a half years ago, and in that span of time he has gone from full power to profoundly damaged, from untouchable to terrible, from respected feigned scorn – or worse. It’s hard to know how he’s recovered from this, even if he’s limping.
His allies like to say never get rid of Boris Johnson, but history tells us that Tory leaders never overlook the damage of a no-confidence vote once it takes place, no matter what. tell me the results. He’s still in power now, but is he really in power?
