It’s finally here! The Vote of No Confidence that the people have been asking for, that opposition MPs have been screaming for, that I personally have been longing for for perhaps the last two years, has come at last.
Early this morning, Sir Graham Brady, Chair of the 1922 committee representing Tory backbenchers, said that enough Conservative members have submitted letters withdrawing their support for Boris Johnson, and that the VONC will take place tonight between 6pm and 8pm in Parliament.
It seems the Sue Gray report was enough to stir Tory MPs into action. I was in doubt over whether the report would be damning enough to trigger the vote, and the only way we were going to get Boris out was to wait for the Parliamentary Standards Committee to conclude he had wilfully misled the House.
This vote is particularly interesting, as the result is still very unclear. Because only a select number of Tory MPs have publicly voiced their lack of support for Johnson, the exact number of dissenting members is unknown. This vote has the potential to swing either way.
But no matter which side gains a majority after today’s vote, the loser will always be Boris Johnson. If his MPs save him from removal, he then has to govern the nation knowing that a large chunk of his own party do not support his leadership. If he loses, then he loses, and can never again be Prime Minister.
It is almost always impossible for a Prime Minister to continue leading their party after a VONC. The last PM to survive one (Theresa May) resigned shortly afterwards, and Johnson’s chances of toughing it out as he always has are not looking good if he does survive this. On top of the traditional pressures heaped on top of PM that survives their VONC, Johnson also has to contend with the ongoing inquiry into his misleading of Parliament. If he survives his VONC, the inquiry will surely seal his fate upon its conclusion.
As Tory MPs file into the lobby to cast their ballots, one can only imagine what Johnson must be feeling right now. Will he be loudly, smugly confident, as is his default emotion? Or will he be experiencing fear for the first time in decades? Whatever is going through his head, the evening’s developments will most surely throw another sequoia-sized wrench into Johnson’s political machine, and I for one cannot wait to see how this vote unfolds.
stay safe
/e
