Fighting for his political life, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that he would lift almost all remaining coronavirus restrictions in England, hoping to stop a devastating loss of support over charges that he lied about parties in Downing Street during lockdowns.
Johnson, who won his party’s biggest majority in 30 years in 2019, put on a feisty performance in Parliament on Wednesday, that according to the Associated Press may be “too little, too late” in preventing his being ousted.
Conservative Party member and ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis went so far as to tell Johnson “In the name of God, go!” during a combative Prime Minister’s Questions session in the House of Commons.
Davis cited a quote from a Conservative lawmaker, Leo Amery, to then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain over his handling of the war in 1940: “You have sat there too long for the good you have done. In the name of God, go.”
Conservative lawmaker Christian Wakeford said the prime minister was “incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves,” and defected to the opposition Labour Party.
This latest stink revolves around a series of revelations about parties in his Downing Street residence during COVID lockdowns, reports Reuters UK. Johnson has repeatedly apologized for the parties and said he was unaware of many of them.
Interestingly, Johnson attended what he said he thought was a work event on May 20, 2020, to which staff had been told to “bring their own booze.” Johnson said on Tuesday that nobody had told him the gathering was against COVID rules.
Needless to say, but when directly asked by an opposition lawmaker if he would resign, Johnson said: “No.” One supporter begged Johnson to stay, to which he said he had not yet “sat here quite long enough, indeed nothing like long enough.”
To trigger a leadership challenge, 54 of the 360 Conservative MPs in parliament must write letters of no confidence to the chairman of the party’s 1922 Committee.
In an effort to either change the subject or buck up support within his own party, Johnson then announced he would ease most of the country’s COVID-19 restrictions, set to end next week, anyway, according to the New York Times.
However, this and other attempts this past week to appeal to the voting public and particularly, his own party, don’t seem to be working. At least 20 Conservative lawmakers plan on submitting letters of no confidence in Johnson, the Telegraph reported. A handful of others have already said they had written such letters.