Grassroots backlash in Conservative stronghold spells trouble for Johnson

Association members in West Midlands seats vent fury at revelations of parties in Downing Street

IN THE Bashundora curry house in Sutton Coldfield on Thursday, Tory party members passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister.

The seat, which has been Conservative since its creation in 1945 and has returned MPS who have served as government ministers and party chairmen, is one of the Tory heartlands where the mood of the public and the grassroots has turned against Boris Johnson.

All those in attendance, officers of the seat’s Conservative Association, were disappointed with the Prime Minister and “thought his time was up”, according to one source, following report after report of parties in Downing Street.

Councillor Simon Ward, who attended the event held before the revelations about the No10 parties before Prince Philip’s funeral, said that “the culture starts at the top”.

Less than three years ago, Sutton Coldfield was Mr Johnson’s first port of call after the initial leadership hustings between himself and Jeremy Hunt in Birmingham. He met 400 activists and was the overwhelming choice of the area for Prime Minister.

In the subsequent election, the Conservatives took nine more seats from Labour in the West Midlands, cementing one of their strongholds in the UK.

But late last year things began to change after North Shropshire was lost to the Lib Dems in the wake of the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal.

Now, after the stories of parties in the heart of government, the public mood has turned against the Prime Minister in other areas of the West Midlands.

Yesterday in Dudley North, one of those seats won by the Conservatives in 2019, Diana Thacker said: “I voted Conservative. I’ve always voted conservative. I don’t know if I would vote for them again though.”

Jason Perry, 43, a business owner who also voted Tory in 2019, said: “It’s shocking, especially the party during the first lockdown. He needs to resign, really.

“I couldn’t see my family. I was on the fence about Boris Johnson but this is definitely a shove in the other way.”

The feeling of constituents has not been lost on their MPS, who feel that the actions of the Prime Minister’s staff and the man himself are linked.

One West Midlands MP said: “Can you imagine under either Gordon

Brown or Mrs Thatcher or Mrs May, Downing Street behaving in this way? It shows you that the culture all comes from the top.”

Another said that Conservative activists in his constituency conducted a poll amongst themselves and 65 per cent said that Mr Johnson should resign.

“That Barnard Castle field trip was a really, really sort of seminal moment,” the MP said. “Anything that was done after that, I think just shows contempt for, for the feelings of people.

“When you know how angry people are and carry on a--ing around, then that’s contemptuous, rather than just bad judgment.”

In Mr Johnson’s Uxbridge constituency, people said they felt he was on his way out.

“He’s got to go,” said Harjinder

Ahluwalia, a retiree in her 60s. “He’s been telling porkies.”

Outside a vaccination clinic in the town centre which Mr Johnson visited on Monday, a 24-year-old nurse told of her anger at the recent revelations of lockdown partying in No 10.

In the spring of 2020, when the pictures were taken, she had been working 14-hour shifts on the mental health ward of Hillingdon hospital. Unlike many of her colleagues, the nurse voted Tory in 2019. “I kept quiet about it and I won’t do it again,” she said, explaining that she and her colleagues felt betrayed by Mr Johnson. “When Boris was in hospital the nurses looked after him, but he’s not looking after us.” Whether the Tory grassroots will take action has yet to be seen. But one association chairman said that although no vote had been tabled for the next meeting, “I have no doubt that if there were a vote it would pass”.