British Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked on June 7 to leave behind the ‘Partygate’ scandal, which had him on the verge of being revoked and which he overcame with the vote of confidence from the ruling Conservative Party. The politician asked his ministers to focus on government work, but the vote showed that support within the caucus – and his leadership – for him is weakened.
Boris Johnson is trying to re-boost his mandate and image with the divided Conservatives after surviving the motion of no confidence.
The British Prime Minister promised this Tuesday June 7 to “get on with the job” and focus on “what matters to the British people”, defined by him as the economy, health care and crime, after the ‘Tories ‘ cast 211 votes in favor and 148 against his continuance in office.
“Now we can draw a line on the issues that our opponents want to talk about” and “make the country move forward,” the political leader told his government team.
This is a government that delivers on what the people of this country care about most.
We are focused on uniting and leveling up across the country and unleashing the potential of the whole United Kingdom. pic.twitter.com/r85ZrFhJNc
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) June 7, 2022
Johnson thanked cabinet ministers for their support and urged them to push through reforms to cut costs for consumers and businesses.
“Now we can draw a line on what our opponents want to talk about, and we can continue to talk about what I think the people of this country want us to do,” the British leader said.
His first challenge is convincing his most senior allies, some of whom likely would have run to replace him had he been ousted, that he can overcome questions about his authority to continue in office.
Doubts hang over Johnson’s leadership
With the vote on Monday June 6, the premier survived politically, but with more than a quarter of his movement voting against him, deep divisions within the Conservative Party are exposed.
The outlook raises serious questions about how long Johnson can stay in office.
Under party rules, Johnson is free from another vote of confidence for one year. However, the prime ministers who came before him and have faced votes of no confidence have suffered deep and irreparable damage.
A growing number of conservative lawmakers fear Johnson’s image has been tarnished by the ‘Partygate’ ethics scandal and he has become a liability to conservative voters.
For many, the parties with alcohol in which the leader of the Government participated just when the British territory, going through a strict confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic, raised serious doubts about his ability to govern, even more so at a time of growing economic and social stress.
Britain’s embattled PM Boris Johnson vowed on Tuesday to plow on with policy priorities a day after fending off a no-confidence vote, but was urged by Conservative predecessor William Hague to quit and save the nation from further “agonies” https://t.co/aEEWmSmEVn pic.twitter.com/baK8EsZk8N
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 7, 2022
Former Conservative leader William Hague called on Johnson to resign, saying “the damage done to his role as prime minister is serious.”
“Words have been spoken that cannot be retracted, reports have been published that cannot be erased, and votes have been cast showing a higher level of rejection than any Tory leader has ever endured and survived,” Hague wrote in a statement. opinion piece forThe Times‘, whose words were reproduced by the British media.
And lawmaker Philip Dunne, who voted against Johnson, underscored the challenges Johnson faces when he said “this is not over.”
Johnson needed the support of 180 of the 359 Conservative lawmakers to remain in power. He obtained 211 supports, more than that limit, but although he described the victory as “convincing”, the rebellion has been greater than what some experts had predicted: 148 votes against that weigh the prime minister and his party.
The margin was even narrower than that obtained by her predecessor, Theresa May, in a motion of no confidence in 2018. Despite overcoming it, the pressures and questions about her leadership in the face of Brexit continued and the leader was forced to resign for six months. after.
“It will come as a huge blow. And I think they will be concerned that this story is not over yet (…) The reality is that these contests have a habit of exposing how weak the authority of a prime minister is, ”said Tim Bale, professor of the situation that Johnson could face. in politics at Queen Mary University of London.
The no votes from his caucus are also a sign of deep divisions among Conservatives, less than three years after Johnson led the party to its biggest electoral victory in decades.
Most local newspapers and tabloids agree that the result is bad news if anything for a leader who has always shown an uncommon ability to ignore scandals.
‘The Daily Telegraph’, with a tendency to support the ‘Tories’, announced that “the hollow victory destroys the conservatives”, while ‘The Times’ called Johnson “a wounded winner” and ‘The Daily Mirror’, left-leaning, he bluntly posted: “Party’s over, Boris.”
“It was clearly and decisively won”
Over and above the evaluation of the position in which the prime minister is left, his staunch supporters cling to highlighting that he passed the vote.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said the party should “draw a line in the sand after this vote”. Raab stressed that “it was clearly and decisively won.”
The vote followed months of growing discontent over the prime minister’s lack of ethics and judgment, which focused on revelations by lawbreakers in the politician’s office while the rest of the country lived in isolation. In those days, thousands of citizens died due to the health emergency and many were prevented from visiting dying relatives precisely because of the rules imposed by the Johnson Administration.
In a report last month on the ‘Partygate’ scandal, civil service researcher Sue Gray said that the premier, along with the officials who organized those Downing Street gatherings between 2020 and 2021, must take responsibility for the “failures”. of leadership and judgment” that created a culture of rule-breaking in government.
Analysts note that Johnson would likely “fight back” with tax cuts and other policies designed to appeal to his party’s right-leaning voter base.
But the situation has already transpired for months and has raised citizen discontent. Polls give the centre-left opposition Labor Party a national lead, and Johnson will face more pressure if the Conservatives lose special elections later this month for two parliamentary districts, also called after some Conservative lawmakers incumbents were expelled for sex scandals.
With Reuters, AP and local media
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