‘The best is yet to come’: Boris defends his record

In a speech ahead of a no-confidence vote, the PM urged MPS to stand united and pledged a plan for economic growth

Agencies

LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who scored a sweeping election victory in 2019, had an unimaginably tough day on Monday after the Conservative Party’s dissatisfaction with his rule came to a head. Johnson has been under increasing pressure after he and his staff held alcohol-fuelled parties in his Downing Street office and residence when Britain was under strict lockdowns due to Covid-19. He was met with a chorus of jeers and boos - and some muted cheers - at events to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth in recent days. On Monday, the once seemingly unassailable Johnson was also lambasted by ally Jesse Norman, a former junior minister who said the 57-year-old prime minister staying i n power insulted both the electorate and the party.

“You have presided over a culture of casual law-breaking at 10 Downing Street in relation to Covid,” he said, adding the government had “a large majority, but no long-term plan”.

The prime minister’s rebuttals over “Partygate” were “grotesque”, Norman wrote, warning that the Tories risked losing the next general election, which is due by 2024.

Johnson later defended his record on delivering Brexit, fighting the Covid pandemic and Britain’s hawkish support for Ukraine against Russia.

“This is not the moment for a leisurely and entirely unforced domestic political drama and months and months of vacillation from the UK,” he told Tory MPS, according to a senior party source.

Supporters could be heard cheering and thumping their tables in approval.

The source said Johnson had indicated tax cuts could be in the offing as Britain contends with its worst inflation crisis in generations.

“We have been through bumpy times before and I can rebuild trust,” the prime minister told his parliamentary rank and file, according to the source, adding: “The best is yet to come.”

A Conservative source said Johnson would lay out a plan for growth next week, quoting the prime minister as telling the lawmakers that he could get through “bumpy times” and “I can rebuild trust”.

But the scale of Tory disunity was exposed in a blistering resignation letter from Johnson’s “anti-corruption champion” John Penrose.

“I think it’s over. It feels now like a question of when not if,” he told Sky News.

Johnson, a former London mayor, rose to power at Westminster as the face of the Brexit campaign in a 2016 referendum, and won the 2019 election with the slogan to “get Brexit done”.

Jacob Rees-mogg, Brexit opportunities minister, told Sky News that completing Britain’s departure from the European Union would be “significantly at risk without his drive and energy”.

Johnson has locked horns with Brussels over Northern Ireland, raising the prospect of more barriers for British trade and alarming leaders in Ireland, Europe and the United States about risks to the province’s 1998 peace deal.

Ministers have also been at pains to point out what they describe as the high points of his administration - saying Britain’s quick roll-out of Covid vaccinations and its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine proved the prime minister could take the “big decisions”.

He has steadfastly refused to resign in the face of calls from the opposition, his own party and the general public.

AFP Vehicles driving past ash-covered houses and vegetation in Juban town, Sorsogon province, after Bulusan volcano erupted. Ashfall hit at least seven villages in and near Juban at the foot of Bulusan where people were asked to stay indoors and wear masks. .