Prime Minister Boris Johnson will continue to lead the Conservative Party — and, therefore, Britain — after a dramatic late-night decision on Monday (6 June) threatened his grasp on power.
In a secret no-confidence vote, which allowed even those who professed loyalty publicly to quietly withdraw their support, 211 out of 359 Conservative lawmakers voted for Johnson to stay in power.
Johnson scraped by after he touted his prowess as a bona fide election winner: “I will lead you to victory again,” he told colleagues as he made his case. His cabinet publicly supported him before the vote.
But his days in power could still be numbered. Even by triggering a vote, lawmakers in his own party dealt Johnson a potentially lethal blow. The decision could have forced him from power a little more than two years after his landslide election victory.
He has survived other scrapes, but Johnson’s handling of the pandemic reached a new low. The vote came after claims that Johnson misled Parliament about lockdown-breaking parties held at Downing Street at the height of a coronavirus outbreak.
Last month, a report painted a lurid picture of lawbreaking parties where staff members drank heavily, sang karaoke for hours, damaged property and, on one occasion, fought — while the public mourned relatives amid grinding lockdowns.
The last time a similar no-confidence vote took place was in 2018. Theresa May, then the prime minister, survived the contest but was still forced to resign several months later.
Johnson has been brought low by the same baffling mix of strengths and foibles that propelled his rise: rare political intuition, and breathtaking personal recklessness, experts said.