/ 07 June 2022

Boris Johnson gets to party on

Image source: Getty
Image source: Getty

THE SQUIZ
UK PM Boris Johnson has survived a vote on his leadership this morning. Enough of his Tory colleagues were able to force the confidence vote, which Johnson won 211 to 148. He has been fighting off his internal and external critics for months over the so-called ‘partygate’ scandal, and the pressure started building again a few days ago when an official report into the gatherings was released.

BACK IT UP A BIT… 
Put simply, ‘partygate’ refers to gatherings hosted by Johnson and other senior members of the government in 2020-21 while Britain was locked down due to the pandemic. Police investigated 12 get-togethers and issued more than 100 fines – including to Johnson, making him the first serving British PM to have been found to have broken the law. Then senior public servant Sue Gray released a report finding the parties resulted from “failures of leadership and judgment”, and some were alcohol-fuelled events. Since then, calls for Johnson to resign have been hella loud – and he was booed heading into a church service for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee last week. And on Monday morning (late yesterday our time), it was confirmed that enough of Johnson’s colleagues wanted a confidence vote to find out whether he had enough support to continue as leader of the party. 

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? 
Well, Johnson has won the vote, but he’ll have to watch his back. Under the party’s rules, they get one shot a year at removing their leader in a process that starts with a confidence vote. That’s failed this morning, but Johnson’s victory is far from convincing. Given just 63 votes protect him from defeat, he will face pressure to go in the coming weeks/months. That’s what happened to former Conservative party leader/PM Theresa May back in 2019… For Johnson’s part, he’s told his colleagues to stick with him and “I’ll win for you again”. Note: the next general election is due in January 2025.

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