Boris Johnson: Roger Gale predicts 'significant traps' for PM

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Conservative Party MPs last night voted to show they have confidence in the Prime Minister after the threshold for triggering a vote (54 letters to the Chairman of the Tory 1922 Committee) was exceeded. But the margin of discontent was higher than many supportive of Mr Johnson feared, with just over 40 percent (148) of his own MPs saying he should go.

Many party insiders suggested 100 no-confidence votes against the Prime Minister would spell bad news for his leadership.

Mr Farage said it had been a “terrible” night for Number 10.

But he added that the vote was not conclusive enough and should have resulted in Mr Johnson being thrown out of office.

The GB News host said in a post on Twitter: “A terrible result for Johnson. Gutless MPs should have finished the job.”

Having failed to do so, he added, “they are doomed”.

For Mr Johnson to himself have been “doomed”, at least half of Tory MPs (currently, that’s 180) would have had to vote against him.

Many hold, however, that while the Prime Minister made it through this challenge, his time will soon be up.

Tory MP Sir Roger Gale this morning told TalkTV: “I will be surprised if this Prime Minister is still in Downing Street by Autumn.”

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Conservative commentator Tim Stanley added in the Telegraph: “‘The Parliamentary party has confidence in Boris Johnson,’ said Sir Graham [Brady, Chairman of the 1922 Committee]. But I have greater confidence we’ll be hearing from Sir Graham again very soon.”

Current Tory party rules protect a leader from another confidence vote for at least a year, but there are whisperings that this could change.

Spectator Chairman Andrew Neil wrote in a post on Twitter ahead of the vote: “In practice these rules are flexible and permeable.”

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Sir Graham, quoted in the Guardian, himself highlighted the possibility of a second vote, noting: “Technically it’s possible for rules to be changed but the rule at present is there would be a period of grace.”

When former Tory leader Theresa May went through a confidence vote in 2019, she secured 63 percent of the vote (a greater total than Mr Johnson) but was out of the job six months later.

At the time, BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg described the vote as a “real blow” to Mrs May’s authority.

Jacob Rees-Mogg added it was a “very bad result”, highlighting that “the overwhelming majority of backbenchers voted against her”. Before yesterday’s vote, however, he stressed that even a “one vote” victory was a victory.

Those close to the Prime Minister are now rallying around him, with Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, for example, yesterday insisting “the PM has won the support of Conservative MPs… at a higher level than even when he won the leadership”.

They claim it is time to “get on” with what they were elected to do, but critics argue Mr Johnson will only hold onto his mandate if he starts enacting more conservative policies, rather than simply talk about them.

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