After nearly three years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson could lose office on Monday (6) if lawmakers from his own party, the Conservative Party, consider that they no longer trust the politician to lead the country.
This Monday, Boris faces the so-called vote of no confidence after months of frying with the revelation that the leader violated the distancing rules established by his own management to fight Covid-19 and participated in a series of parties in Downing Street, the headquarters of the UK government. The episodes became known as “partygate” and were investigated by the London police and the government itself. Boris and his wife were even fined.
Understand what the vote of no confidence is and what happens if Boris loses office.
How is the process open?
For the prime minister to lose his post, at least 15% of Conservative Party lawmakers must express a letter to a body known as the 1922 Committee saying that they no longer support the politician. As the party currently has 359 parliamentarians, at least 54 letters of the type to the group were needed, a number that was reached this Monday. Now, Conservative lawmakers will hold a secret vote to decide whether or not Boris stays in office. It takes more than half of the Conservative votes, which today represents 180 ballots, to remove him from power.
Why is this decision up to Conservative lawmakers?
In the British parliamentary system, the country who has the most seats in Parliament governs the country. Today, of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, 359 are held by the Conservative Party. The rest is split between members of the Labor Party (199 seats) and the Scottish National Party (45), as well as other parties considered dwarfs. As the Conservatives control Parliament, it is up to them to choose the prime minister until a future election eventually changes the balance of forces in the legislature.
What happens if there are not 180 votes for Boris to leave?
If that number is not reached, he remains prime minister and is free to face a new no-confidence vote for one year under current rules — which can also be revised by the party.
Even if he wins, however, if the difference is small, Boris should continue to have his credibility shaken and could resign, according to analysts told the British press. This has happened other times in the country’s recent history. Boris’ predecessor Theresa May was one of them. She faced and won a vote of no confidence in December 2018, but, pressured by the difficulties of carrying out the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, she resigned six months later, which brought Boris to power.
What if the majority votes to remove the prime minister?
If more than half of Conservatives vote to leave, party lawmakers must elect a new prime minister within a deadline to be set by the 1922 Committee.
To run, candidates for the position must have the support of at least eight Conservative lawmakers. If there are more than two candidates, a series of voting rounds is done to eliminate the names with the fewest votes until only two candidates remain. When that number is reached, British Conservatives across the country, not just MPs, vote for the winner. The legend has about 200,000 members.
There is no fixed deadline for this transition. Theresa May took over as prime minister in 2016 less than three weeks after conservative David Cameron resigned. Boris Johnson took two months to be named prime minister after May announced he was stepping down.
What pushes Boris Johnson?
Pressure has started to build since the British press revealed late last year that the prime minister had attended parties at the country’s government headquarters during the period of heightened restrictions against Covid. He apologized to parliament a number of times, but lost support from supporters over the course of the crisis.
With the outbreak of the War in Ukraine, however, the scandal was overshadowed and Boris gained survival. But a report released last week threw him back into the eye of the hurricane by pointing out that the prime minister attended at least eight parties, which involved more than 80 government officials, one of them on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral.
The crisis had an impact on the party, which suffered losses in regional elections in early May, and on Boris himself, who was even booed on Friday (3), at the events of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. The latest data from pollster YouGov shows that 27% of Britons want him to remain in office, against 60% who prefer his resignation.
