Prime Minister Boris Johnson will face a confidence vote later on Monday, after a growing number of lawmakers in the governing Conservative Party questioned the British leader’s flagging authority over theJohnson, appointed prime minister in 2019, has been under growing pressure, unable to move on from a report that documented alcohol-fuelled parties at the heart of power when Britain was under strict lockdowns to tackle COVID-19.
“The threshold of 15% of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the leader of the Conservative Party has been exceeded,” Graham Brady, chairman of the party’s 1922 Committee that represents rank-and-file Conservative lawmakers, wrote in a note.“The votes will be counted immediately afterwards. An announcement will be made at a time to be advised,” Brady said.
Since the release of the damning report into the so-called “partygate” scandal, which listed fights and alcohol-induced vomiting at lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street, Johnson and his government had urged lawmakers to move on. “If we continually divert our direction as a Conservative Party – and by extension the government and the country – into a protracted leadership debate, we will be sending out the opposite message,” he wrote on the Conservative Home website.