A no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson is now a matter of “when” rather than “if” after a dramatic shift in mindset among Conservative backbenchers, former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has said.
The Tory peer’s remarks come as reports indicate that around 12 MPs from the party’s 2019 election intake sent letters of no-confidence to 1922 Committee chair Sir Graham Brady on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile a new poll found that the Tories would currently lose all but three of 45 so-called red wall seats if a survey results were repeated at a general election.
“They’ve moved their mindset now from if to when,” Baroness Davidson told Times Radio on the mood among Tory MPs. “And there’s been a really big change over the weekend.”
She added: “Over the weekend, MPs have gone home and I’ve seen that have been accosted by and as well as their inbox, they’ve been getting it, you know, in the neck face to face and that has, you know, I think created a change in mood.”
Around 12 more letters were handed to Sir Graham on Wednesday, according to Sky News, while the BBC reported that around half of the 20 MPs at the “pork pie” rebellion meeting yesterday have put letters in this morning.
To trigger a leadership challenge, 54 Conservative MPs must write letters of no confidence to the committee chair before. A simple majority of Tory MPs – around 180 – would have to vote against Mr Johnson in a no-confidence vote to oust him from No 10.
A significant group of Tories who won their seats in Mr Johnson’s 2019 election landslide appear to have lost faith in the PM, after he admitted attending a “bring your own booze” event in the Downing Street garden during lockdown of May 2020.
Dubbed the “pork pie plot”, a group of around 20 MPs who won their seats in so-called red wall constituencies at the last election are understood to have met on Tuesday to discuss Mr Johnson’s potential downfall.
Polling by JL Partners for Channel 4 news found the Tory vote has plummeted in red wall seats over the course of one month, with the PM’s approval rating dropping from net -9 in December 2021 to net -35 now.
The pollster said if repeated at a general election, the Conservatives would hold only Dudley North, Bassetlaw and Great Grimsby out of the 45 seats gained from Labour in the North, Midlands and Wales.
Andrew Bridgen – one of seven MPs to have publicly declared they want Mr Johnson to go and have submitted no-confidence letters – predicted a no-confidence vote next week.
“I heard first-hand last night that another 20 from the 2019 intake will be going in today. I would have thought that will encourage a considerable number of others who are wavering to put their letters in,” he said.
Mr Bridgen added: “I think will we get to threshold of 54 this week. Graham Brady will announce we are having a confidence vote next week, probably Tuesday or Wednesday.”
Mr Johnson insisted on Tuesday that he wasn’t told it was against the rules for him to attend a gathering in the garden of Downing Street on 20 May 2020.
Baroness Davidson – who last week called on Mr Johnson to resign along with current Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross – criticised his defence as “pretty weak”.
“The best they could come up with was, ‘Nobody told me it was against the rules that I stood at a lecturn and told the country about and created for the last two years’.
She added: “Which I thought, you know, if that was the best he could do in, you know, in four days of trying to get a line. It was pretty weak. And I think the prime minister is going to have a very difficult time of PMQs today.”
Defence minister James Heappey has said he “sincerely hopes” that Mr Johnson did not mislead parliament about the drinks party in the No 10 garden.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether he was the right person to lead party into next general election, Mr Heappey said: “As things stand, right now, yes.”
He urged colleagues to keep “cool heads” and wait for the outcome of civil servant Sue Gray’s report into government drinks gatherings during the pandemic.
