Boris Johnson could face a vote of no confidence this week as MPs return to Westminster amid mounting speculation that enough Conservatives have written letters to trigger a ballot. Fifty-four Conservative MPs must write to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, for him to call a vote of no confidence in Mr Johnson’s leadership of the party.
If Sir Graham announces on Monday that the threshold has been reached, the secret ballot could come as early as Wednesday. If the prime minister wins the vote, winning the support of more than 180 MPs, party rules say another vote cannot be held within the next 12 months.
Mr Johnson and his wife Carrie were booed by a crowd outside St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday on their way into a service of thanksgiving for Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee. An opinion poll published in the Sunday Times suggested the Conservatives will lose at least one of two byelections later this month by a wide margin.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps said on Sunday he did not believe the prime minister would face a confidence vote this week but that if he did, he would win it. And he played down the significance of Friday’s booing.
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“Politicians don’t expect to be popular all the time. Getting on with running the country is a job where you have to take difficult decisions a lot of the time. I wasn’t there, but I heard people booing, I heard people cheering. I think it’s best to get on with the job at hand, running the country,” he told the BBC.
In an effort to shore up support among his MPs, Mr Johnson is expected to make a number of policy announcements this week on the National Health Service and the economy. And foreign secretary Liz Truss is expected to introduce a Bill that would unilaterally scrap the core elements of the Northern Ireland protocol.
The European Commission has warned Britain that if the Bill becomes law, it will trigger retaliatory measures including trade sanctions and possibly the termination of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. The Biden administration and leading figures in Congress have also warned London against taking unilateral action and urged the British government to resolve its differences with Brussels through negotiation.
Mr Johnson’s supporters have sought to characterise moves to oust him as an anti-Brexit movement after one of his critics, defence committee chair Tobias Ellwood, called for Britain to rejoin the EU single market. One of Mr Johnson’s allies, former MEP Daniel Hannan, said on Sunday that Britain should have remained in the single market but it would be a mistake to rejoin it.
“An opportunity was lost — and lost permanently. The two strongest arguments for retaining many single market arrangements (remember that the single market is not a single entity, but a conglomeration of obligations) were that it would ease the transition and, by finding compromise, spare us a lot of broken friendships. That moment has now passed,” he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.
He added: “During the withdrawal talks, Britain paid a steep price for total regulatory freedom. To have made that payment but now not to use the freedom would be senseless.”
