Boris Johnson has been compared to Monty Python’s Black Knight who declared, ‘it’s just a flesh wound’, after the Prime Minister survived a confidence vote in his leadership.
The comparison was made by the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford, who described Johnson as a “lame duck” Prime Minister.
It comes after Conservative MPs opted to keep the Prime Minister in office by 211 votes to 148.
Only Scottish secretary Alister Jack and former Scotland Office minister David Duguid backed the Prime Minister in the vote, held on Monday evening.
And Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross also urged Johnson to “reflect” on the result, when asked about the future of the Prime Minister.
Raising the issue at PMQs at Westminster on Wednesday, Blackford pressed Johnson on how he can expect to carry on in post without the support of Ross and other leaders in favour of the union.
“Week after week, I’ve called on this prime minister to resign,” Blackford told the Commons.
“I’ve been met with a wall of noise from the Tory benches. I thought they were trying to shout me down.
“But all this time, it turns out that 41% of them have been cheering me on!”
Blackford suggested that Johnson is presiding over a divided party in a “disunited kingdom”.
He continued: “Let’s be clear, at least the numbers don’t lie. 41% of his own MPs have no confidence in him, 66% of MPs across the House don’t support him, and 97% of Scottish MPs want the minister for the union shown the door.
“We now have a lame duck prime minister presiding over a divided party in a disunited kingdom.
“So, how does the Prime Minister expect to continue when even unionist leaders in Scotland won’t back him?”
Johnson compared Blackford to the adhesive, Araldite, as he suggested it is the SNP’s Westminster leader who is helping to keep the UK together,
“I want to thank the right honourable gentleman for his characteristic warm words,” the Prime Minister said.
“And actually, I want to say that the biggest and most powerful and effective advocate of the United Kingdom over the last time that I’ve been in… has been that man there.
“I don’t know how long he’s going to last here as leader of the SNP… long may he rest in place.
“He is the Araldite (glue) that’s keeping our kingdom together.”
Blackford likened the Prime Minister’s reaction to surviving a confidence vote by his MPs to the knight from Monty Python, who claimed that his mortal injuries were just flesh wounds.
“The Prime Minister is acting like Monty Python’s Black Knight, running around declaring it’s just a flesh wound,” Blackford told the Commons.
“And no amount of delusion and denial will save the Prime Minister from the truth, this story won’t go away until he goes away.
“For once in his life he needs to wake up to reality. Prime Minister it’s over. It’s done. The Prime Minister has no options left but Scotland does.
“Scotland has the choice of an independent future. It’s not just the Prime Minister that we have zero confidence in, it’s the broken Westminster system which puts a man like him in power.
He added: “Can the Prime Minister tell us how it is democratic that Scotland is struck with a prime minister we don’t trust, a Conservative Party we don’t support, and Tory governments we haven’t voted for since 1955?”
Johnson responded: “We had a referendum, as I’ve told the House before, in 2014. I think he should respect the mandate of the people.
“He keeps saying he wants independence for his country. Our country is independent… and the only way that independence would ever be reversed would be if we had the disaster of a Labour-SNP coalition to take us back into the EU.”
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