Boris Johnson vote: Deeply wounded, PM faces the beginning of the end

Boris Johnson has survived. For today. But as a keen student of history he knows this may be the beginning of the end.

On this, the 1,048th day of being prime minister, Johnson still has a few weeks to go to beat the tenure of Theresa May, but like his predecessor, he is now deeply, some believe fatally, wounded. He may have won his party’s no-confidence vote 211 to 148 but the result shows that 40 per cent of his MPs no longer trust him.

Already this Johnson government is predicted to be a zombie administration.

The PM only has to have 40 of the rebels repeatedly cross the floor to stymie his ability to govern; although paradoxically the British public may end up sympathetic to his plight if this occurs.

Boris Johnson narrowly survived a no-confidence vote. Picture: AFP.

The Tories are also braced for electoral backlash in two upcoming by-elections. In Wakefield, a traditional Labour seat that the Tories won in the 2019 campaign, Labour is expected to wrest it back with a 20 percentage point swing. The Tiverton and Honiton by-election could go the same way.

Families who were banned from visiting loved ones in nursing homes, who had to organise funerals with just six attendees and who suffered loneliness and high anxiety throughout the most brutal deprivations of social life in 2020 and 2021 cannot forget Johnson’s government for their seeming indifference to the harsh laws they created.

Every Tory MP who attended a jubilee celebration over the weekend was reminded time and time again of the public anger about this. This deep seated issue is not going away, even though there are no longer any Covid rules in the UK. Then there are the Johnson-government’s tax increases, raids on business and the middle classes to prop up handouts and cost of living crises.

The British public may forgive, but they won’t forget.

Keir Starmer will need to convert public fury with the PM into votes for Labour. Picture: Getty Images.

So far the Labour Party has been unable to convert this fury into support for their cause. Nor has the Tory party come up with a possible leader with the intellect and depth to be considered a rival to Johnson’s lightweight bonhomie.

Under the current rules, which can be changed, having survived one no-confidence vote Johnson is immune from another Tory vote of confidence for 12 months. He has responded to the vote result with buoyant enthusiasm, trying to get the country to look forward and not back. He claims is he undeterred by the numbers, pointing out he had far less support when he first challenged for the Tory party leadership.

But within minutes of the result being announced, Tory rebels were briefing journalists that the result was “pathetic” and that Johnson’s career was finished.

Theresa May also won a confidence vote only to resign six months later. Picture: AFP.

A prominent Tory dissenter Sir Roger Gale told Sky News that he will continue to oppose Johnson being party leader and continue to voice his opinion.

Every Tory leader who has faced a confidence vote has failed to either win the next election in the case of John Major, or succumbed to internal pressure, in the case of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May.

May had won the Tory confidence vote 200 votes to 117 in December 2018, yet within a handful of months she was out, paving the way for Johnson to take over.

Margaret Thatcher weeps as she leaves Downing St for the last time.

In 1990 Margaret Thatcher ended her 11 year prime ministerial reign after she received 204 votes to Michael Heseltine’s 152 votes in a leadership contest and she decided not to contest further rounds of voting when her front benchers began to turn.

Johnson’s reputation as a great survivor is, in the coming weeks, about to be put to its biggest political test.