PM on the brink as ally calls his exit ‘inevitable'

Boris Johnson’s desperate efforts to save his premier ship were undermined last weekend as one of his most loyal backbench supporters said it was now “inevitable” that Tory MPs would remove him from office over the “party gate” scandal .

- Toby Helm, Mark Townsend and James Tapper

Sir Charles Walker, a former vicechairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs, implored the prime minister to go of his own accord in the national interest, and likened events in the Tory party to a Greek tragedy. “It is an inevitable tragedy,” Walker said. “He is a student of Greek and Roman tragedy. It is going to end in him going, so I just want him to have some agency in that.”

Walker said the succession of parties in Downing Street during national lockdowns had focused the anger of a traumatised country on No 10 in a way that could only be addressed if the prime minister moved aside. “It is just not going to get better,” he said.