Thanasis Gavos, London
Conservative MPs’s resentment against Boris Johnson over the so-called ‘partygate’, the Downing Street party scandal amid a lockdown, escalated on Tuesday night.
Almost immediately after the statements of a visibly depressed British Prime Minister on Tuesday afternoon that no one had warned him that the gathering with drinks he attended in the garden of Downing Street on May 20, 2020 was not a working meeting and violated the rules, more than 20 Conservative MPs met to discuss their moves.
These are MPs who entered the House of Commons in the last elections of 2019 and represent the so-called “Red Wall”, ie regions in central and northern England that traditionally supported the Labor Party, but voted for Boris Johnson, convinced of the promising benefits of Brexit. and the upgrading agenda of their areas.
At the same time, Boris Johnson’s former top adviser, Dominique Cummings, confirmed that he had been summoned to testify at a party raid by state official Sue Gray. His call follows allegations that he had warned the prime minister that the May 20 party violated the lockdown rules and should have been canceled, but was ignored.
According to reports, up to 20 of the deputies who met on Tuesday plan to submit letters of distrust against the Prime Minister to the competent party body, the 1922 Commission, on Wednesday afternoon. and other colleagues.
It takes 54 letters, or 15% from the Conservative parliamentary group, to automatically trigger a vote to oust Boris Johnson. The only one who knows the exact number is the President of the Commission of 1922, Sir Graham Brady, who, however, does not make an announcement until the sufficient number of letters has been completed.
By Tuesday morning, it was estimated that between 20 and 35 letters had been submitted. The latest estimates from lawmakers who no longer hide their dissatisfaction with the Prime Minister say that if the 54 letters have not already been collected or by Wednesday, then it will not be long – most likely after the forthcoming publication of the results of the investigation conducted by Ms. Gray. for revelations about parties.
One of the Red Wall MPs, Christian Wakeford, became the seventh Conservative MP to publicly support the resignation of Boris Johnson, announcing that he has already submitted a letter of no confidence.
Another lawmaker, Pauline Letham, told Times Radio that the prime minister could not say he did not know the rules since he had enacted them and that if he was found to have misled parliament for what he knew he should resign. Her critique was a reference to Mr. Johnson’s afternoon statements, which were described by another frustrated MP as a “bad amateur drama.”
According to a Times poll, 58 lawmakers from the ruling party, including deputy ministers, have criticized the prime minister for his stance at the partygate, either in statements, on social media or in letters to angry voters.
On the other hand, Conservative ministers and MPs defended the Prime Minister, accusing their “guerrilla” colleagues of infidelity against the man who put them in Parliament. A top lawmaker described it as a “small group of colleagues who go astray”, while an indication of the tension inside the Tories was the statement attributed to another lawmaker that the guerrillas are “a bunch of nothing”.
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