Boris Johnson lost one of his MPs to Labour and was told to resign by a senior Tory in a bruising Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) today.
Amid mounting pressure to quit, the Prime Minster lost one of the MPs elected in his successful 2019 general election campaign just minutes before he faced Keir Starmer at the despatch box.
Earlier today, it was reported that an increasing number of the 2019 intake of Conservative MPs are behind a new push to oust the PM over the continuing scandal regarding parties in Downing Street during periods of covid restrictions.
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Reports suggest that backbench MPs are edging closer to the threshold needed to trigger a vote of no confidence, which could ultimately boot Mr Johnson from office.
However, Mr Johnson told the house during PMQs that he intends to remain as Prime Minister and contest the next election.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer used PMQs to continue his criticism of Mr Johnson's defence of the parties held at Downing Street, while a former Conservative cabinet minister told Mr Johnson that he should resign as Prime Minister.
Once PMQs had concluded, a bruised Mr Johnson revealed the changes being made to covid rules, with all Plan B restrictions to be dropped in England.
Below, we've rounded up the key developments from a hectic PMQs.
Tory MP defects to Labour
Just minutes before PMQs began, Bury South MP Christian Wakeford announced that he was defecting from the Conservatives to the Labour Party.
Mr Wakeford was elected at the 2019 general election, becoming Bury South’s first Conservative MP since 1997.
His decision to move to Labour was announced in his local newspaper the Bury Times and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister explaining the move.
Mr Wakeford said: “I care passionately about the people of Bury South and I have concluded that the policies of the Conservative government that you lead are doing nothing to help the people of my constituency and indeed are only making the struggles they face on a daily basis worse.”
The Bury South MP had been one of seven Tory MPs to publicly call for Mr Johnson to quit in the wake of the lockdown party scandals which had engulfed the government.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “I would like to welcome Christian Wakeford to the Labour Party. He has always put the people of Bury South first.”
He added: “People across Britain face a cost-of-living crisis but this incompetent Tory government is asleep at the wheel, distracted by a chaos of its own making.
“Meanwhile families, businesses and pensioners are suffering from the Conservative failure to tackle rising food, fuel and energy prices.”
Mr Wakeford was cheered by Labour MPs as he arrived in the Chamber and sat behind his new party leader for the Commons showdown with Mr Johnson.
Keir Starmer told not to discuss the Queen in the House of Commons
Last week, Downing Street had to issue an apology to the Queen after reports in The Telegraph revealed that parties had been held in Number 10 the night before Prince Philip’s funeral.
Regarding this, Keir Starmer told the Commons: “Last year Her Majesty the Queen sat alone when she marked the passing of the man she’d been married to for 73 years, she followed the rules of the country that she leads.
“On the eve of that funeral, a suitcase was filled with booze and wheeled into Downing Street, a DJ played and staffed partied late into the night.
“The Prime Minister has been forced to hand an apology to Her Majesty the Queen. Isn’t he ashamed that he didn’t hand in his resignation at the same time?”
Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, intervening, said: “We normally would not, quite rightly, mention the royal family. We don’t get into discussions on the royal family.”
Boris Johnson added: “Well in that case, Mr Speaker, I must ask (Sir Keir) to withdraw it.”
Mr Hoyle said that he had dealt with it before Mr Johnson got back to his feet but was pulled back to his seat by Chancellor Rishi Sunak tugging on the Prime Minister’s jacket.
Keir Starmer: PM’s party defence “gets more extraordinary with each version”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer again went on the attack regarding Boris Johnson's defence of the Downing Street parties.
He said the Prime Minister’s defence requires the public to believe that “as he waded through the empty bottles and platters of sandwiches, he didn’t realise it was a party”.
Sir Keir said: “The Prime Minister’s account gets more extraordinary with each version of his defence. If the Prime Minister’s new defence were true, it requires him to suggest that his staff are not being truthful when they say they warned him about the party.
“It requires the Prime Minister to expect us to believe that whilst every other person who was invited on May 20 to the party was told it was a social occasion, he alone was told it was a work meeting.
“It also requires the Prime Minister to ask us to accept that as he waded through the empty bottles and platters of sandwiches, he didn’t realise it was a party.
“Does the Prime Minister realise how ridiculous that sounds?”
Later, Mr Starmer also said: “I know it’s not going well Prime Minister, but look on the bright side – at least his staff at Number 10 know how to pack a suitcase”, bringing cheers from the opposition benches.
Senior Tory tells Boris Johnson to go
Tory grandee David Davis used PMQs to tell Boris Johnson to resign.
Mr Davis is the most senior of a growing list of Tory MPs to call on the Prime Minister to step aside.
The former Brexit secretary quoted remarks made by Leopold Amery to then-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain during a debate in 1940, early in the Second World War, saying to Mr Johnson: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go.”
The Prime Minister replied: “I must say to him, I don’t know what he is talking about.
“What I can tell him, I don’t know what quotation he is alluding to, what I can tell him is and I think have told this House repeatedly, I take full responsibility for everything done in this Government and throughout the pandemic.”
Covid rule changes
Following the conclusion of PMQs, Boris Johnson announced to the Commons that all Plan B measures are to be dropped across England.
The measures will expire at the end of January 26, meaning that, from next Thursday (January 27), mandatory covid passes will end.
Face masks will no longer be a legal requirement anywhere from next Thursday, while they will be scrapped in classrooms from this Thursday (January 20)
Additionally, the government is no longer asking people to work from home from today (January 19)
The legal requirement for people with coronavirus to self-isolate will also be allowed to lapse when the regulations expire on March 24, and that date could be brought forward.
Mr Johnson signalled his intention to start treating covid-19 more like flu, saying: “There will soon come a time when we can remove the legal requirement to self-isolate altogether, just as we don’t place legal obligations on people to isolate if they have flu.
“As Covid becomes endemic, we will need to replace legal requirements with advice and guidance, urging people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others.”
It comes after covid infection levels fell in most parts of the UK for the first time since early December, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
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