Boris Johnson has been likened to Monty Python’s fictional Black Knight character “running around declaring it’s just a flesh wound”, after narrowly surviving a no confidence vote.
Mocking Mr Johnson, the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford also told the prime minister to “wake up to the reality” and that his time in No 10 is “over” after Monday’s vote.
His jibe comes after 41 per cent of Conservative MPs voted to remove Mr Johnson from office, severely wounding the prime minister’s political standing.
Despite suffering a worse result than former prime minister Theresa May at a similar vote in 2018, Mr Johnson has sought to “move on” and focus on the domestic agenda in the last 24 hours.
Describing Mr Johnson as a “lame duck” leader, Mr Blackford compared his reaction to surviving a confidence vote by his MPs to the knight, claiming his mortal injuries were just flesh wounds.
“The prime minister is acting like Monty Python’s Black Knight, running around around declaring it’s just a flesh wound,” he told MPs on Wednesday.
“No amount of delusion and denial will save the prime minister from the truth — this story won’t go away until he goes away. For once in his life he needs to wake up to reality, prime minister it’s over, it’s done.
The prime minister replied: “We had a referendum, as I’ve told the House before, in 2014. I think he should respect the mandate of the people.
“He keeps saying he wants independence for his country. Our country is independent… and the only way that independence would ever be reversed would be if we had the disaster of a Labour-SNP coalition to take us back into the EU.”
Mr Blackford, who said he had been calling for his resignations for weeks, also claimed he had been “met with a wall of noise” from Tory backbenchers when making such demands.
“I thought they were trying to shout me down,” he quipped. “All this time it turns out that 41 per cent of them have been cheering me on”.
In response, Mr Johnson welcomed Mr Blackford’s “characteristically warm words”, and earlier claimed his political career had “barely begun”.
