PM ‘dead man walking' as Commons apology falls flat

Boris Johnson yesterday faced open revolt from within his own party, after his apology for attending a Downing Street Party during lockdown failed to quell backbench anger.

- ANDREW WOODCOCK

The prime minister's claim that he thought the garden drinks in May 2020 was a work event was greeted with derision from the opposition benches in the House of Commons, with Sir Keir Starmer branding it “ridiculous” and calling on Mr Johnson to resign. The chair of the Commons Standards Committee, Chris Bryant, accused the PM of treating voters as “stupid".

The Labour leader's demand was echoed by Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, who led a phalanx of at least 14 Holyrood Tories calling on Mr Johnson to go. And there were calls for his resignation from senior Tory backbencher William Wragg as well as vocal Johnson critic Sir Roger Gale, who described the PM as a “dead man walking” politically.

One former minister told The Independent that MPs “in double figures” had submitted letters of no confidence in the prime minister to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady - with some letters going in after the PM's dramatic apology in the House of Commons.

But with 54 letters needed to trigger a confidence vote, many Tories said Mr Johnson had succeeded in “buying time” until the release of a report by Whitehall mandarin Sue Gray into the string of alleged parties at No 10. Several said that a negative verdict in the Gray report, expected as early as next week, could spell the end for Mr Johnson.

Former minister Dan Poulter told The Independent: "Should the PM be found to have actively misled parliament or if he faces criminal sanction or both then his position would be untenable.”