Boris Johnson Survives Confidence Vote, Scarred but Still Standing
Opposition leaders seized on the end result to color Conservative lawmakers as having endorsed the management of a lawbreaking prime minister.
“Conservative MP’s made their choice tonight,” mentioned the chief of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer. “They have ignored the wishes of the British public.” Voters, he mentioned, are “fed up — fed up — with a prime minister who promises big but never delivers.”
The end result leaves Conservatives restive and divided, after a tense day by which senior members of the social gathering sparred overtly on social media. Some lawmakers argued that his position had turn out to be untenable.
Roger Gale, a Conservative lawmaker, expressed shock on the dimension of the insurrection. “I think the prime minister has to go back to Downing Street tonight and consider very carefully where he goes from here,” Mr. Gale mentioned to the BBC.
But one in all Mr. Johnson’s defenders, James Cleverly, a minister within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, mentioned, “he’s won it comfortably and now we need to get on with the job.” He mentioned of Mr. Johnson’s electoral observe document, “There’s no other candidate that is going to get anything like that level of support.”
Mr. Johnson was greeted warmly when he addressed Conservatives earlier within the afternoon, with some lawmakers pounding their desks in gestures of help, in accordance with these in attendance. But he additionally acquired difficult questions, and because the members drifted out of the committee room afterward, it was clear he had not satisfied all those that opposed him to name off their mutiny.
“I told the prime minister that if he broke the law he would have to go,” mentioned Steve Baker, an influential pro-Brexit lawmaker who has referred to as on Mr. Johnson to step down. “He’s clearly broken the law, he’s clearly acquiesced in the law being broken, so I stick to my word that I gave on the record that he should go.”
