The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson speaks to students in a math class on January 10, 2022, during a visit to the Oakwood School in Oxbridge, England.
Leon Neil | Getty Images News | Getty Images
LONDON – UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing the political battle of his life with a growing insurgency within his own party, following numerous allegations by parties and government employees, including himself, during the corona virus lockout.
An investigation is currently underway to establish the nature and purpose of the meetings and whether the Govt Act was violated at the time. The findings of that inquiry are eagerly awaited because the results will motivate more Conservative legislators to run Johnson and mount a confidence vote and a leadership challenge.
CNBC has a short guide to the British political crisis:
whats going on?
Johnson’s leadership is under great pressure, sometimes after media reports of several parties and meetings attended by government employees, including Johnson.
One crowd in particular has trapped Johnson, which took place at the height of the first lockout in May 2020, when the public was only allowed to meet another person outside their home in an outdoor setting.
Johnson admitted in Parliament last week that he had attended a party called “Bring Your Own Liquor” in the garden of Downing Street, in which about 100 people were said to have been invited. But he told lawmakers he attended the party for only 25 minutes to “thank the staff” for his hard work and “implicitly believe this is a work event”.
Dominic Cummings, a former adviser and now a major political opponent, accused Johnson of lying in parliament, saying the prime minister had been warned at the time that the party had violated Govt rules. Johnson denies this.
If Johnson is found lying in parliament, he is expected to resign, according to politicians, including his deputy Dominic Robb.
For now, many lawmakers in Johnson’s Conservative Party say they are waiting for the outcome of an investigation led by senior civil servant Sue Gray into the nature of the parties and meetings.
Others have already publicly declared that they think it is time for Johnson to go, as the number of letters of no confidence in the head of the influential “1922 Committee” is increasing.
So what is the 1922 Committee?
Basically, the 1922 Committee was a parliamentary committee overseeing the leadership challenges of the Conservative Party. It is the most influential group in the party, formed by several backbench Conservative legislators.
Backbench lawmakers differ from the “front bench” (those sitting next to the Prime Minister in Parliament) because they do not head government ministries or departments. The group (known as “22”) meets weekly during the sitting of the House of Commons, and is considered a way for backbenchers to integrate and discuss their views independently from the front row.
If Conservative lawmakers do not trust their leader, they can submit letters to group leader Graham Brady asking for a confidence vote. However, to provoke such a vote, 15% of Conservative MPs (or 54 of the current 360 Tory MPs) would have to write a letter to Brady.
Sky News reported Wednesday It believes 12 more letters are needed to trigger the leadership challenge But since the letters are secretly delivered, only Brady knows the real number. We know the number of obscure letters, as some MPs have publicly stated that they wrote a letter to the 1922 Committee saying they had no confidence in Johnson’s leadership.
Fun fact: The 1922 Committee was actually set up in April 1923 following an attempt by new Tory MPs (elected in the 1922 election) to improve cooperation within the party.
What happens next?
While some MPs say they are waiting for the findings of Sue Gray’s report, dubbed the “Party Gate” by the British press, the 1922 committee will hold a referendum if it receives enough letters of no confidence.
If a majority of Tory MPs had voted in favor of Johnson, they would not be able to vote for a new term for another 12 months under the current rules, although Sky News reports that the 1922 committee is considering changing the rule to allow two. Votes per year.
If Johnson loses the vote, he will be forced to resign and the Conservative leadership race will begin. At that point, Johnson, as an ousted leader, would not be allowed to stand.
Sure, Johnson’s will have to resign voluntarily, but Sky News seems to be ready to fight his opponents, and he does not want to do so by reporting to Sky News that he has told his allies to “bring it.” “
So what happens next will depend on how MPs who have not yet decided on Johnson’s leadership will respond to the findings of Sue Gray’s inquiry.
Johnson is likely to run in the local elections in May, however, if lawmakers decide to allow the referendum to measure public opinion on the party. Some people do not want to take that risk by pointing to the fall in support for the Conservatives in last week’s Yukov / Times newspaper poll, leading the Labor Party.
What do Johnson’s critics say?
Surprisingly, the opposition Labor Party has strongly criticized Johnson’s leadership and his comments about attending the May 2020 party and calling for the prime minister’s resignation.
When Johnson issued a “heartfelt apology” to the country for his participation in the event, Labor leader Khair Stormer’s description of Johnson’s visit (which he believed was a work event) was “very absurd”, which actually offended the British public. Should do. “
Last Sunday, Stormer pleaded guilty Johnson lied about being an “industrial-scale party” on Downing Street.
“The facts speak for themselves. The country has made its decision,” he said. He told the BBC.
Angela Rainer, deputy labor chief, told CNBC on Wednesday that Johnson was “starting to look very funny now and that the British public is very angry about it.”
“There is one thing that violates the rules you set, but there is another [when] You’re trying to get people to leave it and make them feel like they’re somehow stupid enough to follow the rules … It’s not going right in all parts of the UK, “Rayner told CNBC’s Rosanna Lockwood.
He believed the limit for a confidence vote on Johnson was approaching, and said such a vote was now “a real possibility”.
Johnson was heavily criticized within his own party. To questions from the Prime Minister in Parliament on Wednesday, as a Tory MP dramatically crossed the Parliament floor to jump into Labor, senior Tory MP David Davis told Johnson: “In the name of God, go!”