Boris Johnson says no-confidence vote win ‘decisive’ despite mass Tory rebellion
Boris Johnson put on a defiant show as he faced MPs in the Commons for the first time since suffering a damaging result in Monday night’s confidence vote on his leadership.
SNP leader Ian Blackford launched a blistering attack on Mr Johnson’s position after the confidence vote, branding him a “lame duck” PM.
Mr Blackford likened the PM to Monty Python’s Black Knight, who claimed fatal wounds were just flesh wounds, and told him: “It’s over, it’s done.”
It transpired that 41 per cent of Tory backbenchers agreed with his repeated calls for the PM to quit, the SNP MP claimed.
But Mr Johnson dismissed the rebels, saying he had “picked up political opponents all over” because his government had “done some very big and very remarkable things which they didn’t necessarily approve of”.
Promising new measures on home ownership and defending NHS waiting times from attacks by Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister insisted he would fight to stay in power, and joked that his political career had “barely begun”.
Labour leader Sir Keir told the Commons that waiting times for GPs and cancer tests were leading to “real human pain”.
The prime minister insisted the Tories were investing in the NHS and recruiting more staff.
The government would be “expanding home ownership for millions of people” and “cutting the costs of business”.