Rebellious Conservative MPs have been ordered to retract their letters of no confidence, amid fears that prospective successors to Boris Johnson are not yet ready to run for the top job.
One member has reportedly warned that a vote of no confidence might be triggered ‘by accident’ as early as next week, possibly as soon as Monday or Tuesday, in the latest hint that the cloak-and-dagger efforts to unseat the prime minister are in shambles.
In order to trigger a confidence vote, 54 letters from Conservative MPs must be submitted to the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady.
While several MPs have publicly called for the Prime Minister to resign, it is not known how many letters have actually been submitted so far. This will only be made public when the threshold has been reached.
According to The Guardian, the rapid backlash against the Prime Minister has taken many MPs by surprise, with the rebellion being poorly coordinated.
Nearly 30 Tory MPs have publicly called for the PM to resign from his post after he was fined by police investigating Covid rule-busting events in No10 Downing Street.
Mr Johnson is under increasing pressure from Tory colleagues to consider his position in the wake of senior civil servant Sue Gray’s pivotal partygate report, which cited ‘failures of leadership and judgment in No 10 and the Cabinet Office’.
On Thursday, the newspaper reported it was told by some MPs that they intended to send their letters to Sir Graham on Monday to cross the 54-letter threshold.
They are holding off until then, The Guardian said, to avoid overshadowing the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations which will conclude on Sunday.
Some MPs are torn over when it would be best to force a no-confidence vote, with MP saying potential candidates to replace Boris Johnson as party leader have not yet secured the necessary 180 votes needed to oust him.
Should the vote be called to early and Mr Johnson narrowly wins, The Guardian reported some rebel MPs fear he could refuse to step down. By winning a vote of no confidence, the Prime Minister would be immune to another for a year.
The MP in questions told the newspaper that it would be better to wait until after the two byelections that are set to be held on June 23 to gauge the public’s mood.
One source said would-be-successors were ‘all too scared’ on account of the Cabinet being ‘wrapped around [the PM’s] finger,’ The Guardian added.
On Wednesday, the Times reported that rebel MPs have discussed trade minister Penny Mordaunt as a possible successor to Mr Johnson.
Others are said to back former health secretary Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs select committee.
From the current cabinet, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace are also seen as being in the running should Mr Johnson be ousted.
On Thursday, leading Tory rebel Tobias Ellwood – who has submitted a letter – called for a ‘pause’ in hostilities until MPs are back in parliament after the Jubilee.
Speaking to Times Radio, he said in light of the Queen’s celebrations ‘perhaps we should have a pause,’ saying he was concerned over the language being used.
Contrary to the Bournemouth East MP’s comments, Ed Costelloe – the leader of the Grassroots Conservatives activist group – called on the PM to save himself a potential humiliating loss and resign before being forced to quit by his own MPs.
Costelloe said Mr Johnson has not been ‘wholly honest’ about the Downing Street parties, according to The Telegraph, and risks putting off future swing voters.
Mr Johnson and his allies have been steadfast in their defence. Speaking on Wednesday, he claimed quitting as Prime Minister over the ‘miserable’ partygate scandal would be irresponsible, and denied suggestions he is a ‘habitual liar’.
He cited ‘huge pressures’ on the economy, the war in Ukraine and his ‘massive agenda which I was elected to deliver’ as his reasons for remaining in post and not seeking to ‘abandon’ ship.
Simon Fell, elected Conservative MP for Barrow and Furness in 2019, was the latest to be reported to have raised concerns and criticised the ‘corrosive culture and a failure of leadership’ that allowed the incidents to happen.
Mr Johnson’s own ethics adviser also criticised his handling of partygate, with Lord Geidt suggesting Mr Johnson’s fixed penalty notice (FPN) may have breached the ministerial code.
Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on the ministerial code, said a ‘legitimate question’ had arisen as to whether the FPN might have constituted a breach of the ‘overarching duty within the ministerial code of complying with the law’.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab led the counter-attack on Wednesday by insisting questions around whether Mr Johnson broke the rules for ministers ‘have been answered’, as he backed the PM’s assertion that he did not intend to breach Covid laws.
The Justice Secretary said he does not believe the Prime Minister will face a confidence vote next week, as the prospect of a leadership challenge loomed.
Mr Johnson, in an interview with Mumsnet released on Wednesday, was initially told he was considered to be a ‘habitual liar’.
The Prime Minister replied: ‘First of all, I don’t agree with the conclusion with the question asked or the premise of the question.’
Told a teacher would have lost their job if they had broken the law and asked why the same did not apply to him, Mr Johnson replied: ‘If people look at the event in question it felt to me like a work event, I was there for a very short period of time in the Cabinet Office at my desk and, you know, I was very, very surprised and taken aback to get an FPN but of course I paid it.
‘I think that on why am I still here, I’m still here because we’ve got huge pressures economically, we’ve got to get on, you know, we’ve got the biggest war in Europe for 80 years, and we’ve got a massive agenda to deliver which I was elected to deliver.
‘I’ve thought about all these questions a lot, as you can imagine, and I just cannot see how actually it’d be responsible right now – given everything that is going on simply to abandon a) the project which I embarked on but b)…’
At this point, Mr Johnson was interrupted and told some believe he has lost the trust of the people, to which the Prime Minister replied: ‘Let’s see about that and, yeah, I’m not going to deny the whole thing hasn’t been a totally miserable experience for people in Government and we’ve got to learn from it and understand the mistakes we made and we’ve got to move forward.’
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, treasurer of the backbench 1922 Committee, said Conservative MPs need to consider which ‘crimes’ Mr Johnson has ‘actually committed’ before launching a leadership coup.
Sir Geoffrey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he wants Mr Johnson to stay in position as ‘a man who knows how to handle crises’, citing his response to the war in Ukraine and the rising cost of living.
Amid suggestions Lord Geidt was considering his position over the handling of the issue, the Cabinet Office insisted he is not quitting.
Labour’s shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy, speaking at her party’s by-election campaign launch in Wakefield, said: ‘This is just a damning indictment of the Prime Minister’s leadership that successive ethics advisers just feel that they can’t trust the integrity of the Prime Minister.
‘This is a Government that is rotten to the core, that the rot starts from the top.’
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries claimed efforts to topple the Prime Minister are being co-ordinated by ‘one or two individuals’ for reasons of ‘personal ambition’.
She told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme on Wednesday: ‘I can assure you that the overwhelming number of Conservative MPs are fully behind the Prime Minister, absolutely back him.
‘There is obviously, I think probably led by one or two individuals, a campaign behind the scenes to try, attempt to remove the Prime Minister for individual reasons to do with personal ambition or other reasons.’
Asked who was behind the campaign, she said she had ‘no idea’ but there was ‘obviously a co-ordinated campaign’.
Former Tory leader William Hague said the Prime Minister was in ‘real trouble’ while another ex-leader, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, appealed to colleagues to halt their plotting until celebrations for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee are over.
The celebrations which will take centre stage from Thursday and over the weekend.