PM clinging on as ‘six Tories plan to switch to Labour’
MPs turn on him.. again
EMBATTLED Boris Johnson last night faced new rebellions from within his own party following two humiliating by-election defeats.
Labour insiders suggested that at least half a dozen Tory MPs were in talks to defect to Keir Starmer’s party.
A party source told the Mirror: “Operation Domino is still very much in play.”
Tory rebels, fearful for their seats following the party’s battering in Wakefield and Tiverton, are also planning to force the backbench 1922 Committee to change the rules banning another confidence vote within the year. More than 30 MPs are already understood to have submitted fresh letters to trigger a contest, three weeks since the last vote.
One former cabinet minister, who previously supported the PM, claimed his bid to serve a third term and remain in Downing Street in the mid-2030s was “completely delusional”.
A senior MP from a Red Wall seat added that Mr Johnson is “showing signs of a bunker mentality, and that never ends well”.
Yet the Prime Minister claimed of his MPs that he “loves them all”.
Asked if he felt personal shame at losing voters’ trust after the by-election defeats, he blustered: “No, because I think actually when you look at what this Government has done, it is quite exceptional. I understand that people are going to want to criticise me, attack me for all sorts of reasons – some of them good, some less good. I think that when you look at what this Government has done, it is pretty remarkable.”
Mr Johnson, in Bavaria with wife Carrie for the G7 summit, tried to shrug off the poll disasters, saying his “golden rule” was to “focus on what we’re doing”.
He said: “I think people were fed up with hearing a lot of stuff about me as an individual rather than about what matters to them. What I have to do is focus on what we are doing to change the way things work for the better.”
He is showing increasing signs of a bunker mentality and that never ends well
SENIOR MP FROM RED WALL SEAT ON PM’S HOPES TO CLING TO POWER