British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Survives No-Confidence Vote
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British prime minister Boris Johnson survived a removal vote from members of his own party Monday evening.
Sir Graham Brady MP, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative Party backbenchers, announced the results of the vote on Monday night in the Palace of Westminster. The tally was 211 in favor of keeping Johnson in office and 148 against — a majority of backbenchers and a number much higher than expected.
The vote was triggered after 54 Conservative members of Parliament — or 15 percent of the caucus — wrote to Brady that they had “no confidence” in Johnson’s leadership of the party. The threshold was met after a months-long public and private campaign by some Conservative MPs to oust Johnson. Since the year began, 19 MPs had called for Johnson to resign or be removed.
The list of MPs includes heavyweight Conservatives such as David Davis, a former cabinet minister and a notable dissenter within the party, Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the select defense committee (who has gained prominence during the war in Ukraine), and Jeremy Hunt, a former foreign secretary who ran against Johnson for the party leadership in 2019. The vice chairman of the 1922 Committee, William Wragg, was the first to call for Johnson to leave.
Frustration had been mounting over Johnson’s leadership for several reasons, the leading one being the publication of the “Sue Gray” report. Gray, a senior civil servant, had been asked to investigate allegations — later confirmed by leaked photographs — that Johnson and his staff had hosted dozens of alcohol-fueled parties at 10 Downing Street over 2020, the first year of the coronavirus. During that time, the rest of the U.K. had been under grueling lockdowns to stop the spread of Covid-19, with many being unable even to visit sick or dying relatives during that time.
Gray’s report was released on January 31 of this year and revealed that the number of parties held was higher than initially thought. They included gatherings on Johnson’s birthday on June 19, 2020, and going-away parties for departing colleagues, as well as Christmas parties and quizzes. The events held on Christmas generated great criticism as millions in Britain could not visit relatives during that time.
So did another party held on April 16, 2021, the day before the funeral of Prince Philip. Many contrasted the image of Queen Elizabeth, then 95 years old, sitting alone at St. George’s Chapel because of strict Covid rules, with the notion of Johnson’s team partying the night before as she mourned.
In her report, Gray wrote that the gatherings were “not in line with Covid guidance at the time” and that over 83 members of the government had “breached Covid regulations and therefore Covid guidance.” The events probed by Gray are also being investigated by London’s Metropolitan Police Service, which has issued penalty notices to both Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak.
Johnson has also faced criticism for his policies on climate change, with plans to transition the British economy to net-zero carbon emissions despite the country facing energy shortfalls. In 2021, he also raised taxes — seen by many as an “un-Conservative” move — to bring in revenue for the National Health Service, Britain’s single-payer health-care system.
In a statement before the vote, 10 Downing Street said that Johnson welcomed the vote “as a chance to end months of speculation.” Most members of Johnson’s cabinet came out in support of him, however. Had there been 180 MPs voting against Johnson, he would have been required — by constitutional convention — to resign as prime minister, with a caretaker being appointed. Ballots are cast anonymously, so even those MPs who had publicly supported Johnson could have turned on him.
There were signs, however, that Johnson might have defied convention and refused to resign while challenging the voting process, which would not have automatically removed him from his job. Will Walden, one of Johnson’s former aides while he was mayor of London, said that “Boris will be taken kicking and screaming out of the front door of No 10. There is no way that the thing that he has wanted all his life he is going to give up easily on.”
Even as the vote’s failure means that Boris will remain prime minister for the foreseeable future – under party rules, another vote cannot be called for more than a year – the vote was seen as a “Pyrrhic victory” for Johnson. Speaking to the BBC, Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said that the vote was “far worse results than Theresa May had a couple years ago, and the vote that brought down [Margaret] Thatcher.” Bridgen said that pressure is mounting on Johnson to resign before the next general election, which is scheduled to be held in December of 2024.
