The crisis in the UK is accelerating, and it seems more and more likely that Boris Johnson’s hours are numbered. Late Tuesday, rumors spread that the rebellion within the Conservative Party is reaching the number necessary to force a no-confidence motion against it in the next few hours or days.
Until now, MPs from his party were expected to wait until the publication of the report by Sue Gray, the senior British Civil Service official who is investigating the ‘Partygate’ scandal, the parties held in Downing Street during confinement by covid. But an interview conducted this morning with the Sky News chain, after almost a week hidden from the cameras, seems to have precipitated the events.
Before the journalist Beth Rigby, Johnson apologized 10 times for the parties, and acknowledged having personally called the Queen to apologize for allowing an event at the Government House the night of the death of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. But the key moment was when he alleged that “no one had told him” that the party organized by his personal secretary, and to which he attended for 25 minutes, was a party and, therefore, violated the rules that he himself had approved. .
This phrase triggered a storm that threatens to take him ahead. His former chief of staff, Dominic Cummings, went to Gray to denounce that Johnson had lied and that he did authorize the party knowing that it was, a testimony that has been supported by at least two other people, according to Rigby herself. If proven to have lied, Johnson would be forced to resign under British government rules.
But the most serious thing is how he felt within his own party. The deputies elected in 2019 in traditionally Labor constituencies, who run the risk of being the first to fall if Johnson’s collapse leads the ‘Tories’ to electoral defeat, have been collecting signatures all afternoon to request the motion of censure against their Leader. They need 54 to get it, and the figure was thought to be far from being reached. But the interview has accelerated the process.
Throughout the afternoon, rumors of new signatures have not stopped emerging. And the most amazing thing is that, although the party rules only require notification to one person, Graham Grady, the chairman of the ‘1922 Committee’, which controls the appointment of party leaders, these rebels have done so openly. The result has been a battle between the ‘Johnsonian’ camp and the ‘2019 rebels’, waged in public, with attacks from one side to the other on twitter and through allied journalists.
It is not yet known if the magic figure has been achieved, or if there are still some deputies who will wait for the control session on Wednesday or for the publication of Gray’s report. Be that as it may, once the figure is reached, it will be a matter of days before Johnson’s continuity at the head of his party and the government is voted on. Everything seems to indicate that it is not a question of if it will happen, but of when. And when the secret ballot box is opened to decide it, Johnson’s hand is very bad: “When Theresa May was voted on, there were more deputies than expected who supported her for fear of what might come next. This time, Boris does not have nor that”, summed up one of the conspiring deputies.
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