First the Conservatives opposed the motion. Then they went along with it. Next they tried to amend it. Then they pulled their own amendment. In the end, and after a procedurally chaotic day at Westminster, Tory MPs stayed quiet and nodded the opposition motion through. The formal result is that the committee of privileges will examine whether Boris Johnson misled parliament about Downing Street’s lockdown parties. The informal result is that Mr Johnson has again lost control of his party and perhaps this time lost its confidence too.
Amid the confusion of the preceding 48 hours, three things stand out. First, Mr Johnson is now further than ever from shaking off partygate. Second, the supposedly improved Downing Street machine is another write-off. And third, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, who made one of his best speeches on Thursday, has won a significant victory. For the Tories, by contrast, the success of the Labour motion provided an abject climax to an abject day.
It was a day that laid bare the true depth of Conservative divisions over Mr Johnson’s leadership. It exposed the enduring vulnerability of the party while he remains leader. It inflicted even more reputational harm to an already damaged parliament. Worst of all, from the point of view of Mr Johnson’s own narrow self-interest, it made things even worse politically than they already were. Politically, this is a form of living death.
Damning speeches from his own side from MPs such as Steve Baker and William Wragg were important evidence of the increasingly despairing Tory mood. But so was the extraordinary emptiness of the Tory benches, with almost no one speaking up for their damaged leader and few party MPs even bothering to attend. The Tory party that had once turned to him in 2019 is now shot through with unhappiness about their leader. As long as he remains, there will be even more of it.
Mr Johnson never had the support in the first place of the relatively few liberal Tories who remain. Many in the parliamentary ranks have deep misgivings too. Significantly, the prime minister is now also being abandoned by some on the right, like Mr Baker, who had stood by him until now. Although he was in India on Thursday, continuing to act as though the argument at home is a sideshow, Mr Johnson will know that his position is eroding, that the bell is tolling more loudly, and that Mr Starmer is remorselessly hunting him down.
The day had begun with the Tory hierarchy focused on passing a delaying amendment to Labour’s motion referring Mr Johnson’s Commons statements on lockdown parties to the privileges committee. Labour’s motion was drafted in moderate terms and held out a hand to Tory critics of the prime minister by promising to delay the referral until the end of the police investigations. Late on Wednesday, the government put down an amendment to extend the delay still further. By Thursday morning it was clear that many dozens of Tory MPs would not vote for it and there would be a free vote on the Tory side. As with the Owen Paterson affair, Mr Johnson led his party unerringly into the mire.
Public indignation about his lockdown parties, plus the inexorable worsening of the cost-of-living crisis, means that there is no quick fix for the Conservatives. British voters now believe that the government is handling almost every issue badly – by ratios of more than three to one in the case of inflation, taxation, immigration, housing and the NHS. Only 20% think Mr Johnson understands the impact of the cost-of-living increases on ordinary people. These are the figures of a broken leader and a wounded party. Mr Johnson’s prime ministership is again hanging by a thread.
