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Pressure grows for Boris Johnson to go

5th February 202230th September 2022 Leicester Student Magazine Editor: Emily Herbert, politics, students, university, University of Leicester

Pressure is building on the Prime Minister to be replaced after lying about parties at 10 Downing Street which took place whilst the country was in lockdown.

Calls for Boris Johnson to resign, come after his disastrous interview with Sky’s Beth Rigby, where he said that nobody had told him that the event, he had attended on the 20^th of May 2020 was breaking the rules.

This all comes as Christian Wakeford, Conservative MP, defects to the Labour party.

What needs to happen for a no-confidence vote in Johnson’s leadership to take place?

The Chairman of the Conservative backbenchers needs to receive letters of no-confidence from at least 15% (54) of Conservative MPs.

Then, Sir Graham Brady, Chairman, calls and organises a no-confidence vote in the leadership of Boris Johnson.

If he loses the confidence vote, a leadership election is triggered in which he has no right to participate.

However, even if he wins the no-confidence vote, it will damage his authority and leadership over his party, making him subsequently a weaker leader, and more vulnerable in the future.

Theresa May faced a similar situation, where she won a vote of confidence in her leadership in December 2018 but damaged her leadership and led to her resignation not soon after.

When should we expect a leadership election?

Scenario 1:

All eyes are on Sue Gray, a senior civil servant, and the one investigating the party gate scandal, the parties that broke COVID restrictions and were held under a lockdown. Her report on what happened will not be out for at least a few weeks, if not months.

Whatever her findings, most likely it will trigger a no-confidence leadership election in Boris Johnson’s leadership of the Conservative party, and if he loses it, a leadership election.

Scenario 2:

Given that the Conservative’s numbers in the polls are deteriorating and Boris’ insistence that he didn’t know that he attended the parties, will continue to cause Conservative numbers in the polls to slip.

This will result in angering more Conservative MPs that could have been more tolerant of Boris Johnson and lead to more no-confidence letters in his leadership, triggering one, if this hasn’t happened within the next few days .

Written by Alexandros Ali