Analysis: Now reaction of backbench Tory MPS is key, and whether vote of confidence is triggered
The Prime Minister and chancellor have been fined after breaking the rules they created. Johnson and Rishi Sunak were handed fixedterm penalty notices yesterday in a move that threatens to derail this Tory government.
This is not about whether the rules were too extreme, too vague, or easy to misinterpret, it is a simple truth both men have been issued fines for breaking the law.
This in itself should be a resigning matter, but it is their comments about the parties that are more likely to cause concern.
It’s one thing to say you’ve attended a party by mistake, it’s another to repeatedly deny you did anything wrong.
Speaking in the Commons on December 7 last year, Mr Sunak told MPS he did not attend a party.
The Prime Minister did the same, a line he has repeated many times in the House of Commons.
By convention, a minister found to have misled parliament is expected to resign or face being sacked, but this is a Government far beyond folboris lowing conventions. We have seen the Priti Patel report fudged, Dominic Cummings kept in post, albeit briefly, and even Matt Hancock left able to resign rather than being fired.
If you expected Mr Johnson to throw in the towel, you have not been paying attention.
Instead, attention will turn to the reaction of backbench Tory MPS, and whether a vote of confidence will be triggered.
Conservative MPS were surprisingly quiet yesterday, a fact helped by recess, with the only minister to break cover to tweet doing so about the return of Derry Girls.
Backbench MPS brave enough to say something are reading from the same script they had before Mr Johnson was fined.
They point to the Ukraine crisis, and suggest a change of leader now would destabilise Britain and help Vladimir Putin.
How long that position holds, remains to be seen.
Mr Johnson has apologised and pointed to the issues facing people in Britain, and vowed to deliver for them.
Tory MPS will possibly continue to do nothing until they realise the public have turned.