Mitchell: I did not submit letter of no confidence

SUTTON Coldfield’s Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell revealed he did not submit a letter of no confidence in a bid to topple Boris Johnson.

However, he said he had already made clear the Prime Minister did not have his support. Mr Mitchell said he was not one of those 54 despite his outspoken withdrawal of support in the party’s leader.

He said: “I never put in any letter of no confidence to Sir Graham.”

Asked why, he said: “I’d said it in the House of Commons on January 31, I’d made my position clear. I just didn’t feel the need to put in a letter. I thought I’d done my bit making it clear publicly so no one was in any doubt where I stood. I might well have written a letter in due course.”

But Mr Mitchell also showed he may have been thinking politically when interviewer Andrew Marr asked: “You were also waiting for the most lethal moment, weren’t you, which is not yet?”

Smiling, the Sutton MP said: “I think there’s probably some truth in that, but anyway, I didn’t put in a letter.”

Mr Johnson has faced increasing pressure in recent months over revelations Downing Street staff partied at the height of lockdown in 2020 with Mr Johnson attending some events. He was handed a fixed penalty notice by the Met Police over his attendance at a birthday bash in the cabinet room of Downing Street in June 2020.

He also attended leaving parties for staff, and was pictured in the Sue Gray report raising a glass, surrounded by staff and empty bottles of alcohol. Having survived this week’s vote, Tory Party rules dictate he is safe from another confidence vote for at least 12

months.