BORIS Johnson has won a vote of no confidence and has vowed to continue as UK Prime Minister despite swathes of Tory MPs rebelling against him.
Conservative MPs voted by 211 to 148 in the secret ballot in Westminster, 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady announced.
The result leaves Johnson severely wounded. When Theresa May faced a confidence vote in 2018 she secured the support of 63% of her MPs – but was still forced out within six months.
Johnson saw 41% of his MPs vote against him, a worse result than May.
The Prime Minister made a last-ditch plea to Tory MPs to back him, promising future tax cuts and highlighting his own record of electoral success.
But with concern over the partygate scandal, economic policy, drifting opinion polls and Johnson’s style of leadership, the Prime Minister faced a difficult task to persuade his doubters.
Johnson told reporters in Downing Street: “I think it’s an extremely good, positive, conclusive, decisive result which enables us to move on, to unite and to focus on delivery and that is exactly what we are going to do.”
He rejected the assertion that he was now a lame duck prime minister who needed to call a snap election to secure a new mandate from the public, insisting he was focused on the public’s priorities.
The scale of the revolt against Johnson’s leadership has left him vulnerable, and he could suffer further blows in two key by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton on June 23.
But he was bullish as he told reporters that he had secured a “very good result for politics and for the country”.
Johnson was facing the threat of being kicked out of office by his own MPs after dozens of Tories wrote to the 1922 Committee following Sue Gray's partygate report.
The PM came out victorious as he managed to keep the party on his side. He will continue on as Prime Minister and another vote of no confidence must wait until at least a year to be held.
Johnson lost the support of his Scottish Tory party leader during the vote. Douglas Ross came out against the Prime Minister and was joined by MPs David Mundell, John Lamont and Andrew Bowie.
Alister Jack and David Duguid detracted from their Scottish peers to back the Prime Minister.
In an effort to save his skin before the vote, the Prime Minister promised future tax cuts and highlighted his own record of electoral success as he sought to win over wavering MPs before voting began at 6pm.
The ballot was triggered after at least 54 MPs – 15% of the party’s representatives in the Commons – said they had no confidence in the Prime Minister.
Johnson wrote to Tory MPs and addressed them at a private meeting in Westminster before voting began.
He told them that “under my leadership” the party had won its biggest electoral victory in 40 years, and pledged future tax cuts, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak expected to say more in the coming weeks.
He warned them that Tory splits risked the “utter disaster” of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour entering Downing Street, propped up by the SNP.
“The only way we will let that happen is if we were so foolish as to descend into some pointless fratricidal debate about the future of our party,” he said.
He told MPs “I understand the anxieties of people who have triggered this vote” but “I humbly submit to you that this is not the moment for a leisurely and entirely unforced domestic political drama and months and months of vacillation from the UK”.
In an attempt to win round Tories concerned about his economic plans, Johnson said: “Everyone understands the fiscal impact of Covid, the cost of clearing the backlogs, but the way out now is to drive supply side reform on Conservative principles and to cut taxes.”
The Prime Minister took five questions during the meeting, two of which were “hostile” and three of which were not, a senior party source said.
Tory former chief whip Mark Harper said that if the PM stayed in post he would be asking MPs to “defend the indefensible”.
Giving an account of questions asked of the Prime Minister in a meeting of the 1922 Committee, the source said Johnson rejected this “very, very aggressively”.
Recent polling showed most people in the UK think the Prime Minister should go, with the vast majority saying he broke his own Covid rules.
Gray's report into lockdown parties at Downing Street found a culture of drinking at No 10, calling into question Johnson's leadership.
Despite the damning report, Johnson pledged to go on as PM and will continue despite dozens of his own MPs not backing him, including Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross.
