Boris Johnson narrowly survives vote of no-confidence as Tory MPs choose to keep him as prime minister

Boris Johnson has won his vote of confidence and will remain as Conservative leader and prime minister.

Chairman of the 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady has just announced to the commons that Johnson won the confidence vote by Tory MPs 211 (58.8%) to 148 (41.2%).

Sir Brady told the commons: “I can announce that the parliamentary party does have confidence in the prime minister.”

To win the vote, Johnson needed a simple majority of 180 ballots to be returned in his favour.

Following his success, the rules as they currently stand say that Conservative MPs cannot challenge him again for another twelve months.

However, with 41.2% of Tory MPs voting against his leadership, Johnson now faces a bigger rebellion than that of Theresa May when she faced her own confidence vote in 2018.

37% of Tory MPs said they had no confidence in her leadership and, despite initially winning the vote, she resigned from her role just five months later. 

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer quickly responded to the result, saying a ‘divided’ Conservative party is ‘propping up’ Boris Johnson.

Taking to Twitter, Starmer wrote: “The choice is clearer than ever before: Divided Tories propping up Boris Johnson with no plan to tackle the issues you are facing.

“Or a united Labour Party with a plan to fix the cost-of-living crisis and restore trust in politics. Labour will get Britain back on track.”

However, the Secretary of State Nadine Dorries – who has been a vocal supporter of Johnson in the run-up to the vote – said now is the time to ‘get back to the job of governing’. 

She wrote on Twitter: “The person Starmer doesn’t want to face at an election is Boris Johnson who secured the biggest Conservative majority since 1987 and the highest share of the vote (43.6 per cent) of any party since 1979, with 14 million votes.

“Time to get back to the job of governing.”

This comes after months of investigations into Boris Johnson’s role in lockdown-breaking parties and gatherings held at Number 10 during the 2020 Covid pandemic. 

Sue Gray, who was tasked with investigating a number of alleged lockdown breaches in Number 10, specifically attacked ‘senior leaders’ in government in her thirty-seven page report. 

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