“Partygate”: Boris Johnson saves his head in a vote of no confidence from which he emerges weakened

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at 10 Downing Street on June 6, 2022. AP - Alberto Pezzali

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

Despite the anger that rumbles after months of scandal, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson saved his post on Monday by winning a vote of no confidence from his majority, from which he risks however emerging even further weakened.

Advertising

Read more

Two and a half years after his triumphant victory at the polls, the increasingly challenged 57-year-old leader has once again demonstrated his ability to get out of the most perilous situations.

But he remains bogged

, the very drunken parties organized in Downing Street during the confinements, and Monday's vote showed the deep divisions within the Conservative party.

It should leave traces.

Of the 359 Conservative MPs who voted, 211 voted in favor of the former mayor of London, against 148 who wanted to oust him, a considerable group of rebels likely to paralyze government action.

At the end of 2018, Theresa May had survived a motion of no confidence with a wider margin than her successor, before resigning a few months later, too weakened to lead. 

Calls to resign 

After weeks of speculation, events rushed on Monday morning, barely closed the festive parenthesis

.

Conservative Party 1922 committee chairman Graham Brady announced that the fateful threshold of 54 letters from MPs, or 15% of the parliamentary group, calling for Boris Johnson to leave, had been reached, triggering the vote.

In the government camp, concern rose throughout the afternoon, motivated by the resignation - among other things - of the executive's anti-corruption manager.

As soon as the results were announced, the ministers began a media tour to salute a “great victory” and invite elected officials and journalists to “move on to something else”, reports our correspondent in London,

.

Internal opponents are still calling on Boris Johnson to learn the lessons of this vote, far from being a plebiscite, and to resign.

A possibility that the Prime Minister has been rejecting for months.

In the event of defeat, an internal election would have been called to designate a new leader of the party, who would have become head of government, in a delicate context of war in Ukraine and inflation at its highest for 40 years.

Victorious, he cannot be targeted by another motion of no confidence for a year, according to the current rules.

(

AFP)

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_EN

• UK

• Boris Johnson