Assessing the damage: can Boris Johnson recover from narrow confidence vote win?

Boris Johnson is attempting to reset his premiership and prove he is still able to govern following a bruising confidence vote in which more than 40% of his own MPs indicated he no longer had their support.

The vote, which showed 211 Tory MPs back the prime minister and 148 now oppose him, “exposed deep rifts within the Conservative Party that will pose a continuing threat to Johnson’s authority as he tries to lead the party into the next election”, said The Times.

Put in context, the margin of victory is less than that granted to Theresa May in a confidence vote in December 2018. She was ousted less than seven months later.

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What is the reaction from MPs and the press?

This morning’s headlines made grim reading for the prime minister, with The Guardian labelling him “humiliated”, The Times, Financial Times and iNews all calling him “wounded”, and even the normally supportive Daily Mail saying the “bombshell result” had “weakened” his position.

The Telegraph noted that “the size of the rebellion was greater than those faced by Theresa May, John Major and Margaret Thatcher in similar votes”, warning that Johnson’s “hollow victory could tear the Tories apart”.

In this weekly column in The Times, former Tory leader William Hague said that “the nature of this particular revolt makes it qualitatively as well as quantitatively devastating” for the prime minister, saying that while he survived the night, the damage done to his premiership is “severe” and has made his position “unsustainable”.

One Tory MP described as a “loyalist” by the Mail said the vote marked “the first day of the civil war”, while a former cabinet minister told the paper the prime minister now faced “death by a thousand cuts”.

What will happen next?

In an attempt to draw a line under the last few months dominated by Partygate, Politico said the prime minister “will try to shift the dial by vowing to turn his attention to the biggest issues facing the country including the economy, crime and health backlogs. A series of set-piece events over the rest of the month will seek to move the focus away from what a No. 10 source called ‘distracting, diversionary and self-obsessed’ internecine Tory warfare.”

The Guardian reported that Johnson will attempt to “reassert control of the political agenda” this week by confirming the government will table legislation to override parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol, “a move likely to further inflame tensions with some of his party critics”, said the paper. A reshuffle could also be on the cards.

Safe… for now

Under current party rules, Johnson cannot face another challenge from his own MPs for at least 12 months. However, rebels have hinted the rules could be changed to allow another confidence vote well before that.

One of Johnson’s key critics, Tobias Ellwood, warned that the strength of feeling against him was so great that he had just months to turn it around.

Harry Lambert in The New Statesman says the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, which administers the confidence votes, has two windows for adjusting the rules. The first is after the two upcoming by-elections in Wakefield and in Tiverton and Honiton on 23 June, both of which the Tories are expected to lose.

“If the 1922 believes that a majority of the party wants another vote against Johnson, the executive has the power to change the rules and call another vote,” Lambert wrote. “The current executive may well be willing to do so, but if they are not, a new executive is set to be elected in the autumn.

“Rebels are confident they will be able to win enough seats on that executive to change the rules then, if they have not already done so, and if that is still necessary. Boris Johnson is far from safe.”