LONDON (Bywire News) - Boris Johnson’s authority is gone. He has suffered the worst result in a confidence vote any prime minister ever has. It was a crushing verdict on his leadership from Conservative MPs.
41% of them, including up to 75% of his own backbenchers, called for him to stand down. Many more came close to joining the rebels, were it not for Downing Street promising them ministerial jobs and even knighthoods.
If almost any other prime minister had suffered that sort of result, they would have stepped down immediately. But not Johnson.
Talking to broadcasters, he claimed that it was "a very good result for politics and the country" and that "it's a convincing result, a decisive result".
Shortly afterwards, his allies briefed journalists that he would now seek to sack and expel his critics. “The PM’s weakness is he’s too nice to people,” one told the Daily Mail. “We need to start getting tough with some of these people and send a message that we’re not going to put up with it anymore.”
These are not the words and actions of an administration that either understands the trouble it is in or what it needs to get out of it. Instead, they are the actions of a Prime Minister who believes only in his own survival.
As a leaked briefing paper from Johnson’s Conservative critics accurately put it earlier this week, "the entire purpose of the Government now appears to be the sustenance of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister".
Source: Byline Times