Boris Johnson to face MPs at PMQs after surviving confidence vote

Boris Johnson will face MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday after surviving a confidence vote in his leadership.

Conservative MPs voted by 211 votes to 148 in favour of backing the Prime Minister to continue in office.

However, the result will have proved bruising for Johnson, with so many backbenchers having declared they no longer have confidence in him.

I have supported Boris Johnson for 15 years, for the London Mayoralty and for PM. Very sadly, I have written to him to say I can no longer do so, for the reasons set out below. pic.twitter.com/0Mjs4hjeSF
— Jesse Norman (@Jesse_Norman) June 6, 2022

It included senior party figures such as former health secretary Jeremy Hunt and former Treasury minister Jesse Norman, who was scathing in his critique of the Prime Minister.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross was also among those to have voted against Johnson.

Only Scottish secretary Alister Jack and Banff and Buchan MP David Duguid voted in support of the Prime Minister.

It also prompted the resignation of John Lamont, the MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, as a parliamentary private secretary at the Foreign Office.

The Tory Party has ignored the British public by backing Boris Johnson.

With my leadership, Labour will put the public first, tackle the cost of living crisis and restore your trust in politics. pic.twitter.com/ESqkRQjeqK
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 7, 2022

At PMQs, Johnson can expect to be attacked by his political opponents following the vote on Monday evening.

In backing the Prime Minister, Labour leader Keir Starmer said that Conservative MPs had “ignored the British public”.

And he said that the public are “fed up” with a Prime Minister who is “utterly unfit for the great office he holds”.

The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford said that the UK had been left stuck with a “lame duck Prime Minister” who had lost the confidence of the public.

He said: “Tory MPs should have drawn a line under Boris Johnson’s disastrous time as Prime Minister but instead they’ve bottled it – allowing this damaging circus to continue and leaving the Westminster government in crisis.”