Enough is enough

TIME'S UP JOHNSON: TURMOIL THAT SHOOK WESTMINSTER | Sajid Javid savages PM and kickstarts mass resignations | 42 quit in bid to axe leader as he holes up in Downing Street

- BEN GLAZE, RACHEL WEARMOUTH, and JASON BEATTIE

IT was the moment in the Commons when you could see the power drain from Boris Johnson.

“You have to hang on in there and that’s what I’m going to do,” declared the Prime Minister yesterday, swivelling around to lap up backbenchers’ applause – only to be greeted by silence and glum faces.

He tried again.

“The job of the Prime Minister in difficult circumstances is to keep going,” Mr Johnson said, perhaps remembering his hero Winston Churchill’s advice: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

The absence of cheers in the House spoke volumes.

More than 30 years previously, Margaret Thatcher had tried to be similarly upbeat during Prime Minister’s Questions.

“I’m enjoying this,” she said. A few hours later she was out of a job.

If anything, Mr Johnson’s position yesterday was even worse.

While Mrs Thatcher could count on a core group of die-hard supporters, there has never been a rock-solid group of Johnsonites.

His relationship with the Conservative Party has always been a marriage of convenience.

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A few minutes later, Sajid Javid savaged Mr Johnson in a devastating resignation speech.

The Prime Minister was forced to sit and listen as the former Health Secretary explained why he was quitting Mr Johnson’s Cabinet for a second time, having walked away as Chancellor in February 2020.

“At some point we have to conclude that enough is enough,” he told a hushed chamber.

“I believe that point is now.”