Rebellious Conservative MPs have been ordered to retract their letters of no confidence, amid fears that prospective successors to Boris Johnson are not yet ready to run for the top job.
One member has reportedly warned that a vote of no confidence might be triggered ‘by accident’ as early as next week, possibly as soon as Monday or Tuesday, in the latest hint that the cloak-and-dagger efforts to unseat the prime minister are in shambles.
Sir Graham Brady, the head of the 1922 Committee, must get 54 letters from Conservative MPs in order to trigger a confidence vote.
While a number of MPs have publicly called for the Prime Minister to quit, it is unclear how many letters have been sent. When the threshold is attained, this information will be made public.
Several MPs were caught off guard by the Prime Minister’s hasty response, which was badly managed, according to The Guardian.
Over 30 Tory MPs have publicly called for the PM to resign after he was fined by police investigating Covid rule-breaking incidents in No10 Downing Street.
Following senior civil servant Sue Gray’s pivotal partygate report, which found “leadership and judgment flaws in No 10 and the Cabinet Office,” Conservative colleagues are putting growing pressure on Mr Johnson to change his mind.
Some MPs informed the newspaper on Thursday that they planned to deliver their letters to Sir Graham on Monday in order to reach the 54-letter benchmark.
According to The Guardian, they are waiting until then to avoid overshadowing the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which will end on Sunday.
Some MPs are undecided about whether it would be best to force a no-confidence vote, claiming that potential successors to Boris Johnson as party leader have yet to gather the required 180 votes to remove him.
Some dissident MPs believe that if the vote is scheduled too soon and Mr Johnson narrowly wins, he would refuse to step down, according to The Guardian. The Prime Minister would be immune to another vote of no confidence for a year if he won one.
To measure the public’s attitude, the MP in question told the newspaper that it would be best to wait until after the two byelections scheduled for June 23.
According to The Guardian, potential successors are ‘all too terrified’ since the Cabinet is ‘wrapped around [the PM’s] finger.’
The Times reported on Wednesday that rebel MPs are considering trade minister Penny Mordaunt as a possible successor to Mr Johnson.
Others are alleged to support former health secretary Jeremy Hunt and Foreign Affairs Select Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, both members of the current cabinet, are thought to be in the running if Mr Johnson is removed.
Tobias Ellwood, a major Tory dissident who has sent a letter, urged for a ‘pause’ in hostilities until after the Jubilee, when MPs return to parliament.
In an interview with Times Radio, he remarked that in light of the Queen’s birthday celebrations, ‘maybe we should take a breather,’ adding that he was concerned about the language being used.
In contrast to the sentiments of the Bournemouth East MP, Ed Costelloe, the leader of the Grassroots Conservatives activist organisation, urged the Prime Minister to avoid a humiliating defeat by resigning before being forced to do so by his own MPs.
According to The Telegraph, Costelloe said Mr Johnson had not been ‘wholly honest’ about the Downing Street gatherings, risking alienating prospective swing votes.
Mr Johnson and his supporters have stood firm in their defense. He argued on Wednesday that resigning as Prime Minister because of the’miserable’ partygate affair would be foolish, and he refuted claims that he is a ‘habitual liar.’
He highlighted ‘great challenges’ on the economy, the Ukraine conflict, and his’massive program that I was elected to deliver’ as reasons for staying in office and not intending to ‘abandon’ ship.
Simon Fell, the Conservative MP for Barrow and Furness who was elected in 2019, was the latest to express concerns, criticizing the ‘corrosive atmosphere and a failure of leadership’ that allowed the instances to occur.
Mr Johnson’s own ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, has criticized his handling of the partygate scandal, claiming that Mr Johnson’s fixed penalty notice (FPN) may have violated the ministerial code.
Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on the ministerial code, said the FPN had raised a ‘legitimate question’ about whether it had broken the ‘overarching obligation under the ministerial code of compliance with the law.’
On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab led the counter-offensive, stating that doubts about whether Mr Johnson infringed ministerial regulations ‘have been resolved,’ while backing the PM’s claim that he did not intend to break Covid restrictions.
The Justice Secretary said he does not believe the Prime Minister will face a confidence vote next week, as the prospect of a leadership challenge loomed.
Mr Johnson was initially told he was a ‘habitual liar’ in an interview with Mumsnet published on Wednesday.
‘First and foremost, I disagree with the result of the question asked or the premise of the question,’ said the Prime Minister.
When told that a teacher would have lost their job if they had broken the law, Mr Johnson responded, ‘If people look at the occasion in question, it felt to me like a work event,’
I was there for a very short period of time in the Cabinet Office at my desk and, you know, I was very, very surprised and taken aback to get an FPN but of course I paid it.
‘I believe that the reason I’m still here is because we’re facing enormous economic challenges, we’ve got to get on with it, we’ve got the worst conflict in Europe in 80 years, and we’ve got a gigantic agenda to achieve, which I was elected to deliver.’
‘As you can guess, I’ve given a lot of thought to all of these things, and I just don’t see how it’d be responsible right now – given everything that’s going on – to simply abandon a) the project that I started but b)….’
Mr Johnson was interrupted at this time and told that some people believe he has lost the people’s trust, to which the Prime Minister responded;’Let’s see about that and, yeah, I’m not going to deny the whole thing hasn’t been a totally miserable experience for people in Government and we’ve got to learn from it and understand the mistakes we made and we’ve got to move forward.’
Before launching a leadership revolution, Conservative MPs should assess whatever ‘crimes’ Mr Johnson has ‘really committed,’ according to Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, treasurer of the backbench 1922 Committee.
Sir Geoffrey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he wants Mr Johnson to keep his job because he is “a man who knows how to deal with crises,” noting his response to the Ukraine crisis and the growing cost of living as examples.
The Cabinet Office confirmed Lord Geidt is not resigning over the handling of the problem, despite reports to the contrary.
‘This is absolutely a scathing indictment of the Prime Minister’s leadership that successive ethics advisers believe they can’t trust the Prime Minister’s integrity,’ Labour’s shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy said during her party’s by-election campaign launch in Wakefield.
‘This is a rotten government from the ground up, with the rot beginning at the top.’
For motives of ‘personal ambition,’ Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said that moves to depose the Prime Minister are being coordinated by ‘one or two persons.’
‘I can guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs are totally behind the Prime Minister, absolutely behind him,’ she said on BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme on Wednesday.
There is clearly a drive behind the scenes, perhaps led by one or two individuals, to remove the Prime Minister for personal reasons or other ones.’
When asked who was behind the campaign, she replied she had “no idea,” but that it was “clearly a coordinated effort.”
Former Tory leader William Hague warned the Prime Minister was in “serious jeopardy,” while Sir Iain Duncan Smith urged colleagues to hold off on plotting until the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations were completed.
The festivities will begin on Thursday and continue through the weekend.