Allies of Boris Johnson have warned him not to reward rebels as he begins a policy blitz designed to overcome deep rifts in his party over his leadership.
They rejected calls for Mr Johnson to widen his cabinet and woo some of the 148 MPs who tried to end his premiership on Monday night, suggesting instead that he should sack ministers yet to publicly support him.
Mr Johnson will attempt to relaunch his government after pleas for MPs to move on from calls for him to resign over his role in the Partygate scandal fell on deaf ears.
But a set-piece speech, in which he will announce more help for those struggling to get on the property ladder, risks being overshadowed by the continuing difficulties within his own party.
MPs expressed fury amid new fears the government plans to breach international law with plans to tear up the Northern Ireland protocol.
Leaked correspondence showed a senior legal adviser warned it could not be argued “credibly” that there was no alternative to unilaterally overriding Mr Johnson’s Brexit agreement.
Reports also emerged that Sir James Eadie, the government’s independent barrister on national legal issues, had not been consulted on whether the planned bill will break international law. A former cabinet minister told The Independent that not asking Sir James’s opinion on such an important matter was “unprecedented”.
As the row intensified, Irish prime minister Micheal Martin warned that publishing plans to act unilaterally over the Northern Ireland protocol would mark a “historic low point”.
A Foreign Office adviser also quit after saying Mr Johnson was “a liability” who is “in the wrong job”. Helena Morrissey, a Tory peer seen as a talisman to many Brexiteers for her early support for leaving the EU, also disputed that the prime minister had displayed “contrition” for the Partygate scandal.
Her resignation is the first since Monday’s no-confidence vote, when the prime minister lost his anti-corruption tsar and a ministerial aide in quick succession as they both quit in order to try to oust him from power.
Allies of Mr Johnson said the prime minister should not reward disloyalty in an expected reshuffle.
One ministerial ally said: “Reach out to them? F**k off. What kind of message would that send?”
“There are only so many jobs in government. You cannot afford to reward disloyalty. For a start, it does not work. You don’t pull people over to your point of view that way. People don’t become more loyal when they join the government, but they can become less loyal when they leave it.
“And the message it sends would be terrible. That you reward those who are disloyal, who vote against you remaining prime minister?
“He should be rewarding loyalty instead, and there are a few people who do not appear to have been particularly loyal so far, which could create space.”
Another suggested there was no need to widen the cabinet because there was no alternative candidate to Mr Johnson, who could appeal to all sides of the party.
“Who is there who can appeal to hardline Brexiteers and those who backed remain better than Boris? I don’t see anyone stepping forward.”
Rumours are rife in Westminster of an early reshuffle to allow the PM to regain the political initiative and to make good on promises of promotion offered to those who backed him this week.
Mr Johnson’s press secretary insisted there were currently “no plans” for a shake-up of his ministerial team, and flatly denied suggestions that Jeremy Hunt – who called for Johnson to go on Monday – was being lined up to replace Rishi Sunak, telling reporters: “There is no vacancy for this role.”
No 10 dismissed suggestions that a witchhunt was underway for members of the government payroll who might have voted to remove Mr Johnson, after six ministers and seven parliamentary aides failed to issue public statements of support.
However, there was little sign of rebel Tories being willing to heed Mr Johnson’s call to “move on”.
One MP said: “A lot of people are still very unhappy with Boris, and I’m not sure offers of tax cuts or help with mortgages are going to cut it. It’s his integrity that we are worried about, more than policy.”
MPs confirmed that discussions were taking place on whether and when applications could be made to the 1922 Committee to reconsider party rules that free Mr Johnson from the threat of another confidence vote for the next 12 months.
But one said: “No confidence votes came from all sides of the party, from One Nation liberals to hardline Brexiteers. They are not united around a particular issue, so much as their distaste for the PM, so there isn’t much in the way of coordination.”
Mr Johnson faced mockery at the weekly session of prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons, where significant numbers of Tory MPs failed to join in loud cheering by his supporters.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford compared the PM to Monty Python’s Black Knight, loudly declaring “It’s only a flesh wound” as his limbs are successively hacked off.
Senior Labour MP Angela Eagle asked the PM to explain, “if 148 of his own backbenchers don’t trust him why on earth should the country?”
A defiant Mr Johnson replied: “I can assure her in a long political career so far – barely begun – I’ve of course picked up political opponents all over. And that is because this government has done some very big and very remarkable things which they didn’t necessarily approve of.
“And what I want her to know is that absolutely nothing and no one, least of all her, is going to stop us with getting on delivering for the British people.”
