Boris Johnson’s allies are begging the 148 rebel Tories to ‘back down’ after Monday’s bruising confidence vote — asking them to not gift the next election to Labour.
The Prime Minister survived a vote of no confidence from his own Conservative MPs on Monday but with his position weakened after a staggering 148 of his 359 MPs voted that they had no confidence in him.
One loyalist MP last night described the vote as ‘the first day of the civil war’, while a former Cabinet minister said the PM now faced ‘death by a thousand cuts’.
He was backed by just 59 per cent of the parliamentary party — worse than the 63 per cent recorded by Theresa May when she faced a challenge.She was gone within six months. Three-quarters of MPs not serving as ministers or in other official posts went against the premier.
Despite the result, the PM hailed a ‘convincing’ result after avoiding the humiliation of outright defeat, saying it is time for the party to ‘move on’ and focus on the ‘things that really matter to people’.
Cabinet figures immediately tried to shore up Mr Johnson, branding the outcome a ‘handsome’ victory and urging rebels to ‘move on’.
But the bombshell result comes as the party looks set to lose a double-header of by-elections on June 23 in the Tory-held seats of Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton.
Before the vote, Mr Johnson begged MPs not to do Keir Starmer’s work for him in a last-ditch speech, www.solitaryisle.shop pointing out there is no obvious successor who would be better.