Tonight, at 6pm, Boris Johnson will face a vote of no confidence in his leadership and the question many Conservative MPs will have on their minds is “Is Boris still an asset?”. The answer to that is, quite clearly, no. Since Partygate began, polls have been showing a consistent 6-10% lead for Labour, the Conservatives lost almost 500 council seats in the latest local elections and are also set to lose the Wakefield byelection by a bigger margin than in the 2001 General Election, not to mention the true-blue Tiverton & Honiton by-election, where the Conservatives are set to lose the seat to the Liberal Democrats.
Who might replace Boris Johnson?
Boris Johnson is no longer a winner, that much is clear. However, what is not clear, is if Conservative MPs have the bottle to kick him out. There are many MPs who are disgruntled but are also unsure about who could actually replace Johnson. A few names to be aware of are Tom Tugenhadt, who has already stated that if Boris were to go, he would stand in the ensuing leadership election, Tobias Ellwood, Penny Mordaunt, Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss. Speaking as a Conservative Party member, I believe that Mr Tugenhadt would be the perfect candidate, however, his lack of ministerial experience may stop MPs from giving their support towards his campaign.
I would not be surprised if Johnson wins tonight’s vote, as David Cameron put it:
“The thing about the greased piglet is that he manages to slip through other people’s hands where mere mortals fail.”
Boris Johnson has survived many scandals that would have destroyed most other politicians, but this may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
“A useless, criminal liar”
Today we will see the usual Boris sycophants, Michael Fabricant, Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees-Mogg etc., roll out in front of the cameras and spew their usual nonsense about Brexit and the brilliant Covid vaccination programme that somehow still left us with over 160000 dead, our outstanding support to Ukraine, which left fleeing refugees standing for hours filling out forms to be able to apply to come here. So, when you hear people say that the PM got “the big calls right”, he didn’t. Boris Johnson is a useless, criminal, liar.
Speaking as a Conservative Party member, I hope the MPs do the right thing and get rid of him as the party cannot win with Johnson at the helm. Notable MPs who have said they will not support the PM are Jeremy Hunt, Andrew Bridgen and Jesse Norman. People from all wings of the Conservative Party are coming together and uniting against Boris and his frazzled regime. It is my opinion that Boris will lose tonight’s vote by a whisker, but it could go either way. I just hope that Conservative MPs show a backbone and get rid of this cancer within the party.