Former minister Sir Bob Neill has become the 12th Conservative MP to submit a letter of no confidence in Boris Johnson’s leadership, declaring that he did not find the prime minister’s explanations over lockdown-breaching parties “credible”.
The Bromley and Chislehurst MP said that this week’s Partygate report by senior civil servant Sue Gray had uncovered “wholly unacceptable” behaviour within 10 Downing Street which had undermined trust in government.
And he said: “Trust is the most important commodity in politics, but these events have undermined trust in not just the office of the prime minister, but in the political process itself. To rebuild that trust and move on, a change in leadership is required.”
Within an hour Alicia Kearns, the MP for Melton, rumoured to be a key member of the ‘pork pie’ plot against the prime minister over partygate earlier this year, also said she did not have confidence in the prime minister.
She hit out at the “shameful lengths” she said some would pursue to preserve Mr Johnson’s premiership and attacked his call for the public to move on.
“To say we just need to ‘move on’ is to treat with contempt and disregard the sacrifices of the people of Rutland and Melton, and our entire country.”
The chair of the backbench 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady must call a vote on Mr Johnson’s leadership if he receives 54 no-confidence letters, with the PM then needing the support of half his MPs – some 180 votes – to hold onto his job.
The latest interventions came hot on the heels of the resignation of Eastleigh MP Paul Holmes as ministerial aide in the Home Office.
Mr Holmes, who was the first member of the government to quit since Wednesday’s publication of the full Gray report, said that “a toxic culture seemed to have permeated No 10.” But he did not make clear whether he wanted Mr Johnson to go or had written a letter to Sir Graham.
Another four MPs – Julian Sturdy, John Baron, David Simmonds and Stephen Hammond – have called for the PM’s resignation since the report’s publication, while another, Guildford’s Angela Richardson, has said that she would resign if she faced similar criticism.
Sir Bob, a barrister who currently chairs the Commons justice committee, said: “We cannot have one rule for those working in government and a different one for everyone else. Those of us who set the rules have a particular responsibility to stick to them ourselves.
“Sue Gray’s report has highlighted a pattern of wholly unacceptable behaviour, spread over a number of months, by some working in 10 Downing Street, including breaking rules that caused real pain and hardship for many, and which the government, and we as parliamentarians, were telling others to live by.
“I have listened carefully to the explanations the prime minister has given, in parliament and elsewhere, and, regrettably, do not find his assertions to be credible.
“That is why, with a heavy heart, I submitted a letter of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady on Wednesday afternoon.
“Trust is the most important commodity in politics, but these events have undermined trust in not just the office of the Prime Minister, but in the political process itself. To rebuild that trust and move on, a change in leadership is required.”
