Dam finally bursts... can Boris keep his head above water?
UNHAPPINESS with Boris Johnson had been building up among Conservative MPs for months.
But news that he attended a Downing Street garden party while the rest of the nation was in lockdown has upset Tory MPs to such an extent that there might, for the first time, be a serious chance they'll get rid of him.
Issues that have upset Conservative MPs include the planned National Insurance increase.
A 1.25% increase is due to come into effect in April, with the money earmarked to help fund the NHS and social care, but it comes at a time when constituents are already under financial pressure due to increases in the cost of living.
There has also been unhappiness over continued Covid restrictions, including the Covid “passport” policy which requires nightclubs to ban customers who cannot prove they have been vaccinated or tested recently.
While some critics accuse the Government of being too swift to reopen society following two years of on/off lockdowns, many Conservative MPs think it has been too slow.
And there is deep unhappiness over some events that have taken place in Parliament, such as the vote in November 2021 when Conservative MPs were whipped to overturn the suspension of North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson, who later resigned.
Even so, none of this was enough to spark a serious attempt to sack Mr Johnson.
It's only in the past week that a significant number of Conservative MPs have begun seriously talking about a change of leader.
It's the new intake of Tories, elected for the first time in 2019, that are most furious.
In a way, this might seem strange. It could be argued that they owe more to Mr Johnson than anyone else.
Without his leadership in the 2019 general election, and his ability to appeal to voters who have never backed the Tories before, these "red wall" MPs wouldn't have been elected in the first place, some observers might say.
But they are also the MPs who have the most to lose. If the Conservative Party starts haemorrhaging votes, they will be the first to lose their seats.
They also, in many cases, feel particularly let down – because they
used to be true believers. Some of the more experienced MPs were always cynical about Boris.
It's worth noting that the Conservative vote in previously-Labour seats actually shot up in the 2017 general election, when Theresa May was leader.
It rose again in 2019, with Boris Johnson leading the party, and there's obviously no disputing the fact that Boris won an historic victory.
But it's not quite as clear as it may seem that only Mr Johnson could have done this. That's the mood within the Conservative Party, or, at least, so I'm told.
How could Boris Johnson be removed? Under Conservative Party rules, a no confidence vote in the leader takes place if 15% of Tory MPs write to the chair of the party's 1922 Committee, which represents backbench Conservative MPs, asking for one. That's 55 MPs.
If enough letters are received, a secret vote takes place to decide if the leader stays or goes.
If a majority vote to support Mr Johnson, he would stay as party leader, and no new no confidence vote would be allowed for 12 months.
But if he lost this vote, the Conservative Party would hold a contest to pick a new leader.
Mr Johnson would be barred from standing, but any other Tory MP could put themselves forward. Only Conservative MPs are involved in this process.
Separately, it's also possible for an opposition party to call for a vote of no confidence in the Government, which would involve the whole of the House of Commons, but that's a different procedure.
If the Government lost that type of no confidence vote then it could lead to a general election, but it wouldn't actually stop Boris Johnson being Conservative leader (it wouldn't remove him as Prime Minister either, at least not unless Labour won the general election).
What are Conservatives saying? Those responding to recent reports include West Midlands Mayor Andy Street. He expressed shock about the
reports, but stressed that he would wait for the findings of an inquiry by Sue Gray, the Whitehall official looking into the party claims.
Mr Street said: "When I saw this I thought, I can't really believe this, if I'm honest. It was May 2020, a time when we were all restricted. My idea of going out was to walk along the canal with one friend, frankly, and I'm sure there's lots of people in the West Midlands who have their own recollections of what they were doing in May 2020. So yes, it is very difficult to believe.”
Sutton Coldfield Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell said he will await the results of the inquiry by Sue Gray.
But he also pointedly said that his own constituents were barred from attending funerals of their own loved-ones while the party was taking place.
Solihull Conservative MP Julian Knight said “anyone found to have acted wrongly must be held to account”. What he didn't say - but we all know - is that the Prime Minister is one of those accused of behaving wrongly.
Mr Knight said: “I'm so proud of the sacrifices made by those in Solihull and around the country to keep our country safe during this pandemic so I am as furious as anyone on reading these reports. It's right that an inquiry is happening, but when it is concluded anyone found to have acted wrongly must be held to account.”