No qualms about ousting Boris Johnson if seats are at stake

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture: AFP

The rebellion by almost 100 Tory MPs was far worse than even pessimists in Downing Street had predicted.

It was the largest revolt Boris Johnson has faced as Prime Minister and the most significant.

On one level it has no practical implications as Labour votes meant that the measures were easily passed. But on another it is a public demonstration of the very real fissure that has now opened up between Johnson and his own MPs after a torrid few weeks for the Prime Minister.

Downing Street will argue there has always been a significant minority of MPs who are ideologically opposed to any form of lockdown restrictions, and that is absolutely true.

Yet what has been so telling in the run-up to the vote is the way in which so many Tory MPs have chosen to flaunt their opposition to Downing Street through public statements.

More than 70 put their names to a list advertising their intention to vote against, while a number have been talking up letters of no confidence in Johnson’s leadership. Although the rebellion was about Covid, the vote reflects wider anger at the way the government is being run. Pretty much every MP – no matter what they say – tends to care first and foremost about job security and Johnson’s travails are making them nervous.

That is not to say that Johnson is under any immediate threat. He was elected the Conservative leader in 2019 not just to get Brexit done but because Tory MPs believed he was the best candidate to win an election – and so he proved later that year.

Beyond that the Prime Minister does not have a natural base of loyalists in the party. They will support Johnson as long as he continues to be a vote winner whose presence in Downing Street makes it more, rather than less, likely they will keep their seats at the next election. If that is no longer the case they will turn on him without sentiment.

The Times