Prime Minister Boris Johnson could face a vote of no confidence, according to one of his allies. Business minister Paul Scully tonight (June 5) said Mr Johnson would win such a vote.
Some Conservative MPs have told the media a ballot on Mr Johnson's leadership could be triggered in the next week. On Friday, a section of the crowd booed Mr Johnson when he arrived at St Paul's Cathedral for a thanksgiving service for the Queen as part of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
It came after months of widespread public anger over Covid rule-breaking in Government buildings. In April, Mr Johnson was fined by the Metropolitan Police for attending his own birthday party in the Cabinet room in Downing Street in June 2020, when indoor gatherings were prohibited.
Speaking to Channel 4's The Andrew Neil Show tonight, Mr Scully said: "We may well have a vote of confidence. I think he will win that.
"And I think what he will then need to be doing, what we will be looking for him to do is govern well, to get back on to those big things." Asked if he thought a confidence vote looked likely, he replied: "It might well happen.
"If it does happen, the Prime Minister, I know, will face it down. But whatever happens, we've got to get back to governing, to tackle the things that people want us to do on a day-to-day basis, not continuing … to look back at two years previous."
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps earlier told the BBC that Mr Johnson would win a confidence vote on his leadership. Asked about the boos that met Mr Johnson on Friday, Mr Shapps said prime ministers had to make difficult decisions and not everyone would approve.
He also noted that Conservative ministers were booed at the London Olympic games in 2012 but still went on to to win the General Election three years later. He suggested that at the next General Election, voters would judge whether the Government had "done a good job as a whole" and that decisions on Brexit, coronavirus and the economy would be what mattered to people.
