Boris Johnson

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces a confidence vote that could remove him from power on Monday amid public anger over the 'partygate' scandal.

Under increasing pressure, the government commissioned an investigation which found a widespread culture of boozy parties — 16 events in total — including punch-ups and vomit on the walls. Disquiet has bubbled for weeks, but early Monday party officials announced that there would be a so-called vote of confidence in the prime minister held later in the day. A Metropolitan Police investigation issued 126 fines to 83 people, including Johnson and his wife. In 2019, Johnson's predecessor Theresa May won such a vote, but the sizeable minority that came out against her made it clear that she could no longer carry on. And until now the total number of letters has only been known by one man, Sir Graham Brady, chairman of a group called the 1922 Committee, which represents backbench Conservative lawmakers. On Monday Brady confirmed the threshold for a vote had been reached. If Johnson wins the secret ballot, he will be safe from further challenge for 12 months — officially at least. He and dozens of others have been been fined by police for the parties — having previously denied breaking any rules. One of them, Jesse Norman, tweeted his letter Monday saying that Johnson had “presided over a culture of casual law-breaking.” The prime minister had previously said that he had been “vindicated” over the parties — a claim that Norman described in his letter as “grotesque.” During Saturday's concert at Buckingham Palace, comedian Lee Mack also cracked jokes about his unpopularity before a nationwide audience. In a statement, Johnson’s office said the confidence vote was “a chance to end months of speculation and allow the government to draw a line and move on.” The prime minister will make his case to lawmakers beforehand, telling them that “when they’re united and focused on the issues that matter to voters, there is no more formidable political force,” the statement said. The vote, which is due to be held between 1 p.m. ET and 3 p.m. ET, was triggered after dozens of Conservative lawmakers submitted letters of no confidence in his leadership.

Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench lawmakers, said in a statement Monday that the number of Conservative Party parliamentarians calling ...

If Johnson wins the vote comfortably, he could arguably emerge stronger within his party, which has struggled to identify a rival politician to challenge Johnson in recent months. A defeat in the vote on Monday would effectively end the career of one of Britain's highest profile post-war politicians. Johnson's predecessor Theresa May was the last sitting British leader to face a no-confidence vote from their own party. The scandal over parties is not the first to dent Johnson's reputation. When 15% of Conservative lawmakers have submitted letters, a vote of confidence is triggered among all Conservative lawmakers. A narrow win, by contrast, would leave Johnson's reputation diminished even if it does not topple his government. The process is murky -- the letters are kept secret and the chair, currently Brady, doesn't even reveal how many have been handed in. He has also been criticized for his response to a cost-of-living crisis. The party is facing two difficult parliamentary by-elections later this month. Several of Johnson's top ministers have already declared their support for him. The vote Chancellor Rishi Sunak also tweeted that he would back Johnson in the vote and "will continue to back him as we focus on growing the economy, tackling the cost of living and clearing the Covid backlogs."

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday evening will face a punishing vote of no confidence by his fellow Conservative Party lawmakers ...

Analysts said that Conservative lawmakers were hesitant until recently to give Johnson the shove as he has been a proven vote winner with cross-party appeal. This is starting to pose a serious electoral threat to the Conservative Party.” “I have followed the rules that we have in place. Johnson was booed by some when attended a jubilee service on Friday at St Paul’s Cathedral. To survive, Johnson needs just a simple majority — or 180 votes — of his fellow party members. But he will be wounded.

Boris Johnson's time as prime minister has been a rollercoaster. He faces a no-confidence vote mainly over rule-breaking parties in government buildings ...

Boris Johnson will face a leadership vote in his ruling Conservative Party on Monday following a series of scandals.

The seat is among the historically Labour-voting districts in northern England—the so-called Red Wall—that helped deliver a huge House of Commons majority for the Tories in 2019. They return to Westminster on Monday after a long holiday weekend to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne, having seen Johnson booed by crowds at an event on Friday. Several factors may work in the prime minister’s favor, including the large number of MPs on the government’s payroll and the lack of obvious successors for the party to rally around. The scandal compounded the sense of frustration among Tory MPs, after what they saw as a series of errors and U-turns that have seen the party slump in opinion polls. Ousting him requires a majority of the party’s 359 MPs, with any abstentions altering the math. Still, it is by no means a given that a vote will bring an end to his premiership, and Johnson made clear he plans to come out fighting.

The U.K. Parliament will hold a vote of no confidence on Prime Minister Boris Johnson Monday evening, a Conservative Party chairman announced Monday morning ...

Johnson has continued to face opposition from politicians and the general public, including being booed by spectators when he arrived Friday at a service for Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee. The no-confidence vote comes after a tumultuous few months for Johnson, who has been linked to a series of parties that took place as the U.K. was on lockdown and such gatherings were not allowed to be happening, a scandal known as “partygate.” A highly anticipated report from senior civil servant Sue Gray released last month found there had been “failures of leadership” across Johnson’s government that had allowed the parties to take place in spite of the lockdown rules, and criticized the “excessive consumption of alcohol” that was “not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time.” Johnson was fined only $63 (£50) for the parties following a police investigation and apologized for the parties in light of Gray’s report, but the PM refused to resign despite calls for him to do so. In a letter to Conservative MPs obtained by the BBC, Johnson’s team asked lawmakers to “reject chaos and division” by voting for the prime minister, arguing Johnson has an “unmatched electoral record” and will help the party in future elections, and holding an election to replace him would be “extremely harmful to the country and the Conservative Party.” “By backing [Johnson] … we can put the distraction of the past months behind us, unite and focus on getting on with the job,” Johnson’s team wrote. A spokesperson for Johnson said the vote “is a chance to end months of speculation and allow the government to draw a line and move on.” Conservative MPs will vote Monday via secret ballot on whether or not they have confidence in Johnson’s leadership, and a simple majority of MPs (at least 180) would have to vote against the prime minister for him to be ousted. The U.K. Parliament will hold a vote of no confidence on Prime Minister Boris Johnson Monday evening, a Conservative Party chairman announced Monday morning, which could result in Johnson getting booted from leading the country after he broke its Covid-19 lockdown rules with a series of pandemic-era parties.

In order for a no-confidence vote to be passed, more than 180 lawmakers would have to vote "no confidence" in the prime minister.

Last month, civil servant Sue Gray released a damning report into the alcohol-fuelled parties that were held in and around Downing Street over the pandemic, some of which Johnson attended. Johnson, his wife Carrie, along with Chancellor Rishi Sunak, were all fined by police for breaking lockdown rules. During this period, Britons were subject to stringent social restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus. "The threshold of 15 percent of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the leader of the Conservative Party has been exceeded," Brady said in a statement on Monday. Many of these parties were held during times when it was against the law to meet up with other people and socialize. Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, several parties took place in and around Downing Street, at the heart of government.

Conservative lawmakers have triggered the internal party vote after several months of simmering scandal about lockdown-breaking parties held at Downing ...

If Mr. Johnson loses the confidence vote and there is a contest to replace him, several contenders are likely to step forward. The full report released said that Downing Street had changed some of its practices to address that issue. Despite those efforts, Mr. Brady confirmed that the threshold of 54 letters from Conservative lawmakers that was needed to secure a no-confidence vote had been passed. For some weeks, his conduct of the war in Ukraine appeared to have won Mr. Johnson a reprieve. The chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, was once seen as a leading contender after earning plaudits for assembling gargantuan fiscal rescue packages early in the pandemic. Under the rules, Mr. Johnson must now win a simple majority in a vote of his Conservative Party’s lawmakers to remain their leader. And last month a report by the senior civil servant, Sue Gray, painted a lurid picture of lawbreaking parties in Downing Street where staff members drank into the early hours, damaged property and on one occasion fought with each other. He has apologized for mistakes made. He said that the vote would take place between 6 and 8 p.m. Monday evening. On Monday the health secretary, Sajid Javid, told the BBC that Mr. Johnson would fight to stay on and appealed to Conservative lawmakers to unite around the prime minister and vote in favor of him. “He has delivered on Covid recovery and supporting Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. Despite calls for his resignation and a collapse in his opinion poll ratings, Mr. Johnson had fought hard to try to stem a tidal wave of internal criticism of his behavior and to prevent the confidence vote taking place.

Britain's governing Conservatives will hold a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Boris Johnson that could oust him from the premiership.

“The problems we face aren’t easy to solve,” he wrote on the Conservative Home website. He urged Britons to “move on” and focus on righting the battered economy and helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s invasion. His selection in July 2019 capped a roller-coaster journey to the top. The last prime minister to survive a no-confidence vote was Theresa May in 2018. If he doesn’t, the party will choose a new leader, who will become prime minister. “The threshold of 15% has been passed,” Brady said. Monday’s vote comes as Johnson’s government is under intense pressure to ease the pain of skyrocketing energy and food bills. But under Boris Johnson’s leadership, our plan for jobs shows how we are navigating through these global challenges. She never regained her authority and resigned within months, sparking a leadership contest that was won by Johnson. Still, with no clear front-runner to succeed him, most political observers think Johnson will defeat the challenge and remain prime minister. But the fact that enough lawmakers are demanding a vote represents a watershed moment for him — and a narrow margin of victory would leave him a hobbled leader whose days are likely numbered. Lawmaker Jesse Norman, a longtime Johnson supporter, said Monday that the prime minister had “ presided over a culture of casual law-breaking” and had left the government “adrift and distracted.”

In a development that's been building for weeks, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing a confidence vote.

Part of that stems from the fact that any Johnson replacement would come from his own, ideologically homogenous party. One of the MPs who said then that May had to resign, Jacob Rees-Mogg, now says that Johnson should stay if he commands a simple majority. Johnson’s likely to win an overwhelming percentage of those in the government, which could give him some 180 votes right off the bat, unless there’s a secret plot that the notoriously leaky party has managed to hide. He could still face pressure to resign, but he wouldn’t face any new no-confidence vote for at least a year. Politico’s roundup of polls shows the opposition Labour Party with a comfortable seven-point lead in voting intentions. Jesse Norman, who stated he will be voting against Johnson, labeled “grotesque” the prime minister’s reported feeling of vindication after the release of the Sue Gray report on the investigation into those incidents at No. 10.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson has led the nation out of the European Union and through a pandemic. On Monday, Parliament will vote if he gets to ...

He urged Britons to “move on” and focus on righting the battered economy and helping Ukraine defend itself against a Russian invasion. His selection in July 2019 capped a rollercoaster journey to the top. If he doesn’t, the party will choose a new leader, who will also become prime minister. The vote comes as Mr. Johnson’s government is under intense pressure to ease the pain of skyrocketing energy and food bills. Conservative Party official Graham Brady announced Monday that he had received letters calling for a no-confidence vote from at least 54 Tory legislators, enough to trigger the measure under party rules. Lawmaker Jesse Norman, a longtime Mr. Johnson supporter, said Monday that the prime minister had “presided over a culture of casual law-breaking” and had left the government “adrift and distracted.” Still, with no clear front-runner to succeed Mr. Johnson, most political observers think he will defeat the challenge and remain prime minister. Ms. Gray said the “senior leadership team” must bear responsibility for “failures of leadership and judgment.” He had held major offices, including London mayor and U.K. foreign secretary, but also spent periods on the political sidelines after self-inflicted gaffes. To remain in office, Mr. Johnson needs to win the backing of a simple majority of the 359 Conservative lawmakers. Mr. Johnson’s Downing Street office said the prime minister welcomed the vote as “a chance to end months of speculation and allow the government to draw a line and move on, delivering on the people’s priorities.” But the fact that enough lawmakers are demanding a vote represents a watershed moment for him – and a narrow victory would leave him a hobbled leader whose days are likely numbered.

Dismissed as the clown prince of British politics for decades, Johnson secured an enormous parliamentary majority for his Conservative Party after calling an ...

The report, compiled by senior civil servant Sue Gray, detailed excessive alcohol consumption and partying until near dawn at the center of British politics. With inflation in Britain hitting record highs, critics argued that Johnson’s mismanagement was causing a cost of living crisis. The police investigation ultimately determined that 83 people violated lockdown rules, including the prime minister, his wife, Carrie, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak. The scandal quickly led to recriminations and resignations. On April 12, police investigating the parties fined Johnson for his attendance at a birthday party reportedly organized by his wife at 10 Downing Street during a strict lockdown in June 2020. Return to menu Return to menu The pandemic would go on to kill more than 170,000 people across Britain, with millions more infected. Return to menu Return to menu Return to menu If Johnson gets a simple majority of members of parliament — 180 votes — he can stay as prime minister.

Here's everything you need to know about the vote against the leadership of British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, later today.

Buoyed by those who supported the U.K. leaving the European Union, he stood in the party leadership election following former Prime Minister Theresa May’s resignation, and won with 66% of the vote. The leader requires a simple majority of 50% plus one extra vote to survive; afterward, a similar vote can’t take place for at least another year. The motion can generally be proposed by members of either party against their own party or the opposition, but within the Conservative party, it requires at least 15% of one party’s MPs to submit a letter of no confidence in order to trigger a ballot.

The charismatic leader renowned for his ability to connect with voters has recently struggled to turn the page on revelations that he and his staff ...

He urged Britons to “move on” and focus on righting the battered economy and helping Ukraine defend itself against a Russian invasion. His selection in July 2019 capped a rollercoaster journey to the top. If he doesn’t, the party will choose a new leader, who will also become prime minister. But the fact that enough lawmakers are demanding a vote represents a watershed moment for him — and a narrow victory would leave him a hobbled leader whose days are likely numbered. Hours later, party lawmakers lined up by the dozen in a corridor at Parliament to cast their ballots in a wood-paneled room, handing over their phones as they entered to ensure secrecy. The vote comes as Johnson’s government is under intense pressure to ease the pain of skyrocketing energy and food bills Johnson’s allies insist he will stay in office if he wins by even a single vote. “To disrupt that progress now would be inexcusable to many who lent their vote to us for the first time at the last general election, and who want to see our prime minister deliver the changes promised for their communities.” The prime minister said he was “humbled” and took “full responsibility” — but insisted he would not resign. Gray said the “senior leadership team” must bear responsibility for “failures of leadership and judgment.” To remain in office, Johnson needs to win the backing of a simple majority of the 359 Conservative lawmakers. Still, with no clear front-runner to succeed Johnson, most political observers think he will defeat the challenge and remain prime minister.

Some 211 Conservative Party lawmakers voted in favor of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, while 148 voted against him — a result worse than many expected.

Speaking to reporters after the result, Johnson said he was "certainly not interested" in snap elections. Some 211 Conservative Party lawmakers voted in favor of the prime minister on Monday, while 148 voted against him. Berenberg Bank Senior Economist Kallum Pickering said that Johnson's win does not mean it's back to normal for his government. Former Health Minister Jeremy Hunt, meanwhile, indicated he would be voting "for change." The confidence vote was triggered after 15% of Conservative lawmakers (or 54 of the current 359 Conservative Party MPs) submitted letters of no-confidence to Brady. Johnson needed the support of a simple majority of 180 MPs to win the vote, but the figure of 148 was worse than many expected.

Boris Johnson has survived a vote of confidence held by his own party. Conservative MPs voted Monday in a secret ballot by 211 to 148 to allow Johnson to ...

If they do, it will be hard for even Johnson's most vocal supporters to claim that the Prime Minister's unpopularity had nothing to do with it. For months, Johnson and his government has been caught up in scandals that range from protecting an MP who had breached lobbying rules to another MP being found guilty of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy. Its handling of the Partygate scandal has been at times shambolic and incoherent. Some detractors also said he'd struck a serious tone at the meeting, and that they expected Johnson to win. Ahead of the vote, a margin of 80 was considered by many to be a worst-case-scenario. Though the vote may impact his legacy, Johnson never really expected to lose.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a confidence vote among Conservative Party lawmakers in Parliament on Monday as 'partygate' scandal fallout hit his ...

The prime minister attempted to portray his survival as "a very good result for politics and the country." A Metropolitan Police investigation issued 126 fines to 83 people, including Johnson and his wife. The anger has been compounded because Johnson, who critics point out has a record of saying things that turn out not to be true, repeatedly denied that such parties ever happened But those rules can and have been changed in the past. That's a majority of just 63, splitting his party 59 percent to 41 — a far bigger mutiny than many pundits expected. Opinion polls for Johnson and his party have crashed following the revelations that he and aides held a string of alcohol-fueled parties in violation of Covid-19 restrictions, a scandal known as "partygate." Public anger has clearly not ebbed, with the prime minister and his wife booed as they arrived for a Platinum Jubilee event last week.

The UK's Boris Johnson survived a rebellion from his own party triggered in part by revelations of drunken Downing Street parties held in violation of ...

Some 60% of the British public would like him removed from office, according to YouGov, a polling and research firm. Some Conservative lawmakers have found it difficult to defend. However, the fact that the secret-ballot vote happened at all leaves him politically wounded.

The final vote Monday was 211 to 148, which means Johnson won enough support from Conservative members of Parliament to remain as the leader of his party after ...

And in May, the Tories lost hundreds of seats in local elections, a sign that the electorate was moving against Johnson and his party. Johnson and his backers had used Russia’s war in Ukraine to try to tamp down some of the Partygate criticism, and make the case against a change in leadership during the crisis. But the crisis for Johnson came this weekend after the head of the 1922 Committee, which is the parliamentary group for Conservative members of Parliament, told Johnson it had reached the threshold of 54 letters (from about 15 percent of Conservative MPs) necessary to trigger a no-confidence vote in his leadership. A sign of Johnson’s undoing came during the Queen’s Jubilee, when a crowd booed Johnson while he was arriving at St. Paul’s Cathedral for a service. Johnson told the House of Commons that “it did not occur to me, then or subsequently, that a gathering in the Cabinet Room just before a vital meeting on Covid strategy could amount to a breach of the rules.” “The overwhelming majority of discontent is tied narrowly and exclusively, I think, to Johnson’s conduct — and the lying, particularly, given all the sacrifices that people have had,” Allen said. The general gist of the report was the same as the truncated version — a profound failure of leadership, and a conclusion that many of the gatherings should not have happened based on Covid-19 rules. It was not a huge amount of money, but it made Johnson the first prime minister found to have broken the law while in office. Ultimately, the man Johnson picked to lead it had to step aside after it emerged that he might have hosted a party. (The BBC has a good “Partygate” timeline to keep track of all these wine-and-cheese nights and “leaving dos.”) Meanwhile, as Gray was pursuing her probe, London’s Metropolitan Police launched their own criminal investigation into whether any parties at Downing Street violated Covid-19 regulations, which meant top officials, including Johnson himself, could potentially face penalties. “This isn’t going to go anywhere because it is a millstone around his neck — and will be now for as long as his premiership continues,” said Nicholas Allen, a professor of politics at Royal Holloway, University of London. This very well might be the “beginning of the end” for Johnson’s leadership.

Earlier today, a secret ballot was triggered by scores of British lawmakers writing to party bosses calling on the PM to quit.

It’s all tied to revelations that during a COVID-19 lockdown, the official home of the prime minister hosted a string of illegal parties. Earlier today, a secret ballot was triggered by scores of British lawmakers writing to party bosses calling on the PM to quit. Elected members of the U.K.’s ruling Conservative party are about to decide whether to remove Prime Minister Boris Johnson from office.

Ms. Balls is the deputy political editor of The Spectator. LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson's moment of reckoning has arrived at last. After months of ...

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. But as Mr. Johnson attempts to move on from a painful, authority-draining vote, it’s hard to escape the feeling that this cat is on his ninth and final life. The sense among senior Tories is that if a majority turns against Mr. Johnson, he will be gone before the year is out. Mr. Johnson’s supporters insist that he is the exception to the rule, that he isn’t, as one minister put it on TV, a “dead man walking.” There was a time when the bulk of Conservative lawmakers would have believed the claim. Then there’s the small matter of a House of Commons investigation into whether Mr. Johnson misled Parliament, usually a resigning offense. The breaches led to a police investigation, during which he became the first sitting prime minister to be fined by the police, and a drawn-out independent inquiry, which unearthed lurid details of partying at Downing Street. He became vulnerable to one of the most dangerous charges in British politics: hypocrisy. In a sign of national disapproval, Mr. Johnson was greeted with boos and jeers at the Platinum Jubilee service on Friday. It’s not that a Conservative politician being booed is rare; in fact, it’s quite common. In a signed letter to colleagues, he grudgingly admitted that “some of that criticism has perhaps been fair” — before quickly adding, “some less so.” The biggest factor in Mr. Johnson’s fall from grace, of course, is Partygate. In a scandal that shook British politics, he and members of his staff were accused of repeatedly breaching lockdown rules. Instead, it tends to mark the beginning of the end, the start of a leader’s slow death. He won the mayoralty — twice — in Labour-voting London, led the Leave campaign to victory in the Brexit referendum and in 2019 secured the largest Tory majority since the days of Mrs. Thatcher. It was, he said in a defiant response, a victory that meant “we can focus on the stuff that really matters.”

Monday's vote saw Johnson win the backing of most of his Conservative lawmakers, but by a much slimmer margin than his supporters had hoped.

And in the meantime he might still be forced to resign if his inner circle turn against him," Monks noted. "I think the key metric for a lot of MPs is the opinion polls, they'll be looking at Boris Johnson's personal ratings ... and the gap between them and the Labour Party." I don't believe he will fight the next election. We've got what really is a lame-duck prime minister," he told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick Tuesday. "To some extent we assume that the Conservatives will lose both of those by-elections, but we shouldn't minimize the impact. Johnson needed a simple majority of 180 MPs to win the vote, but the figure of 148 was worse than many expected and means that over 40% of his own lawmakers have no confidence in the prime minister —despite his efforts to win their support.

Prof Jon Tonge , who teaches British politics at the University of Liverpool, is kicking himself for not betting on a contest he so accurately forecast. In a ...

“It gives you a nice warm feeling,” he said. He said: “At the start of the day, I was thinking the result would be virtually the same as the no confidence vote in Theresa May. But during the day, it became clear that the level of opposition was going to be greater. Tonge said he initially expected Johnson to match the performance of his predecessor. He added: “This is the political escapologist of political escapologist. He recalled: “I said Sinn Féin would get 26 seats and they got 27. In a tweet posted 58 minutes before the result was announced, Tonge correctly predicted 211 MPs or 59% would back Johnson. He also predicted that 147 or 41% would rebel.

Despite surviving a no-confidence vote in Parliament, Britain's prime minister must now weather a risky Parliamentary by-election this month and, ...

Mr. Johnson and his wife, Carrie Johnson, were booed as they walked up the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral on Friday ahead of a service of thanksgiving. Nodding to the Downing Street parties that have nearly been Mr. Johnson’s undoing, it said: “The Party Is Over Boris.” She won a robust majority, but her popularity had been weakened — also by a highly unpopular household tax that she refused to abandon — and the next year, her leadership was put up for a vote again. Some analysts believe that Mr. Johnson is now so politically damaged and unpopular that it would be better for the opposition parties if he clings to power and leads the Conservatives into the next election. She decided not to stand for a second round of voting, and stepped down a few days later. And one golden rule of British politics is that voters rarely warm to parties that are divided. “We are going to get on with the massive agenda that we were elected to deliver in 2019,” he said. If they win, that would send shock waves through the Conservative Party, signaling to many of its lawmakers in the south that they, too, are at risk of losing their seats when the next general election comes. The parties have no way of forcing a general election, which does not need to take place until January 2025, though Mr. Johnson is expected to call it earlier. That was the case for the previous prime minister, Theresa May, who survived a no-confidence vote in December 2018 but announced her resignation within six months of her victory after relentless pressure. On June 23, voters will cast ballots in Wakefield, in the north of England, where Imran Ahmad Khan quit after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenager. The bigger question facing Mr. Johnson is how he will pass difficult legislation when more than 40 percent of his lawmakers voted to oust him.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has survived a vote of confidence triggered by discontented lawmakers in his own Conservative Party, but his troubles ...

Following the vote, Starmer said Johnson was "utterly unfit for the great office that he holds" and accused Conservative lawmakers of ignoring the British public. A nuclear option, which Johnson on Monday said he had no interest in, would be to call a snap election. If it turns out Johnson's standing has been damaged beyond repair, he might opt for a voluntary exit rather than face the humiliating demise that she endured, which ultimately led to Johnson becoming Prime Minister. Judging by his comments so far, the Prime Minister will aim to continue to cling on. Losses in those polls could heap more pressure on Johnson ahead of a national general election expected in 2024. These rules, however, can change at any time -- as many pointed out on Monday and Tuesday.

Johnson remains Britain's prime minister but faces a restive Conservative Party as more than 40 percent of his party's members of Parliament voted against his ...

Today, Afrikaans is only the third-most spoken language within households—after Zulu and Xhosa—in a country that recognizes 11 official languages. For many South Africans, Afrikaans is closely associated with the white supremacist government that ruled the country during the apartheid era and imposed Afrikaans language requirements on the country’s Black majority, sparking widespread protests by Black schoolchildren. He’ll be keenly aware of the demise of Theresa May, the previous British prime minister who also survived a leadership challenge—with a larger margin of victory—only to resign six months later. Bookies currently have Jeremy Hunt, a former British foreign secretary, as Johnson’s likely successor, with Penny Mordaunt, a junior trade minister; Liz Truss, the current foreign secretary; and Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (and occasional FP contributor) rounding out the top four. Rajapaksa’s presidential powers may yet be reined in if lawmakers successfully pass a new amendment in Parliament. The Americas summit. In practice, the relatively thin margin of victory means that Johnson must keep looking over his shoulder. How has the British media reacted? Sri Lanka’s future. British betting shops currently give the shortest odds to a crop of leaders with a foreign-policy background. U.S. solar boost. Kishida’s new pitch.

Many observers, including a number of Conservatives, think that his premiership has been holed below the waterline.

After the outcome was announced, Johnson brazenly hailed it as “a convincing result, a decisive result.” The headline in the Financial Times was closer to the truth: “Weakened Boris Johnson Scrapes Through After Damaging Confidence Vote.” Like Trump, Johnson is too self-focussed and slippery to be confined within a single political philosophy, and, like Trump, he blames the media for his troubles. The latter reference was to Johnson’s Trump-like attempts to centralize power in his own office, neutering his Cabinet as well as Parliament itself. How much longer will Johnson last in Downing Street? Under the current Conservative Party rules, his leadership can’t be challenged again for at least twelve months. . . . Rather, you are simply seeking to campaign, to keep changing the subject and to create political and cultural dividing lines mainly for your advantage.” Norman added, “You are apparently trying to import elements of a presidential system of government that is entirely foreign to our constitution and law. A photograph from November, 2020, during the deadly second wave of the coronavirus, showed Johnson standing in a room at 10 Downing Street, surrounded by other people and bottles of alcohol, raising a glass to a departing colleague. If Stewart is proved correct, Partygate won’t be the only thing that did in Johnson, although the scandal has certainly turned many ordinary voters against him, and particularly against his clumsy efforts to cover up the high jinks at No. 10. Is there anyone here who doesn’t like a glass of wine to decompress?” The current situation isn’t directly comparable because May, after her vote, was still burdened by the ongoing Brexit stalemate, whereas the COVID restrictions are now in the past. An independent report published last month detailed a number of social events at 10 Downing Street during which staffers partied late into the night, drinking heavily, and, in at least one instance, belting out karaoke. The Prime Minister survived, but more than forty per cent of his own party had abandoned him. Since Boris Johnson became Britain’s Prime Minister, in July, 2019, comparisons between him and Donald Trump have perhaps been overdone a bit.

While Johnson won his no confidence vote, the number of those who opposed him is far higher than most analysts had expected.

And what makes it so difficult for the Conservatives in selecting a replacement is that he so resoundingly defeated many of the party's leading lights in the contest that made him prime minister. But for him or anyone else, one major obstacle would be creating a mechanism to get Johnson out of Downing Street, kicking and screaming, as several reports have suggested. MARX: Well, yeah, as even some of his staunchest critics will acknowledge, Johnson's shown a real talent for political comebacks, unexpected surprises - twice winning the London mayoral election, along with top government jobs, a leadership contest and then that 2019 general election. MARX: Well, for many months there's been a pretty steady drip of revelations and reporting about that behavior inside Downing Street during the pandemic - drinks gatherings, garden parties, even a karaoke machine - ignoring the kind of social restrictions that blanketed Britain for such long periods of time. What exactly went on at the prime minister's residence that was so damaging? And yet after the vote itself took place, in private, the results of the secret ballot showed more than 40% of the Conservative legislators in Parliament had voted against Johnson's continued leadership.