Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson has continued to resist calls to resign and vowed to “keep going” and deliver on the “colossal mandate” he was given by the British people at the 2019 general election.
31 Conservative MPs have now resigned from government positions or roles within the party, with Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid the highest profile of those having stood down from the cabinet ministerial roles as chancellor and health secretary, respectively.
Giving a statement of resignation after Prime Minister’s Questions, Javid said that “enough is enough” and that “treading the tightrope between loyalty and integrity” had “become impossible”.
Javid added that “something is fundamentally wrong” within government and that the problem started from the top, and he went on to sympathise with ministers who had been sent out to face reporters in defence of Johnson in the past having been armed with false or inaccurate information.
One such minister was the now former children’s minister Will Quince, who was sent out to defend the PM on his handling of the Chris Pincher controversy, only for the information he had been provided to later have been proven wrong. Quince is among the Tories who have left government or party positions.
Despite calls from opposition MPs and some backbench Conservatives to go on Wednesday, a defiant Johnson said: “I will continue to deliver on the mandate I was given.
“The job of a prime minister in difficult circumstances, when he's been handed a colossal mandate, is to keep going - and that's what I'm going to do.”
The prime minister conceded that it had been a “bad mistake” to appoint Chris Pincher to the whips’ office having been made aware of misconduct allegations against him.
The PM did not disclose whether he himself had referred to the Tamworth MP as “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” before appointing him as deputy chief whip, as was first claimed by Johnson’s former senior aide, Dominic Cummings.
Johnson has retained the support of some of his cabinet, but a delegation of some of his senior ministers is expected to ask him to stand down later on Wednesday evening.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer took aim at the PM’s allies during Wednesday’s session, calling them a “Z list cast of nodding dogs” that were propping up Johnson’s premiership.
Sir Keir also accused Sunak, Javid and the scores of other ministers who have resigned as lacking “a shred of integrity” for not quitting sooner and called the entire Conservative party “corrupted” for “defending the indefensible”.
The SNP leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, called it a “minor miracle” that the PM had remained in post long enough to even attend Prime Minister’s Questions and said that “it really is over” for Johnson’s time in power.
Blackford added: “This prime minister is desperately clinging onto his own fantasy, but the public cannot afford to put up with this farce of a government a minute longer. Today we should be talking about the Tory cost-of-living crisis, soaring inflation and the growing cost of Brexit. But instead, it’s always about him.
“How many more ministers need to quit before he finally picks up his pen and signs his own resignation letter?”
Backbench Conservative MP David Davis, a critic of the prime minister since Partygate, once more called on Johnson to step down before “it becomes impossible for government to do its job”.
With dissent growing within the Conservatives over scandals including Partygate and the Pincher controversy, as well as discontent over the government’s current tax policy and the cost-of-living response, it has been speculated that the upcoming 1922 Committee elections could be used as an opportunity to oust the prime minister.
Under current Tory party rules, Johnson’s surviving of a confidence vote last month means that he cannot face another leadership challenge for up to a year. However, backbench rebels could usher in a new set of committee leaders who might change the rules to open the door to a fresh leadership challenge this summer.
The full list of Conservative MPs to have resigned from government or party roles at the time of writing is as follows:
- Rishi Sunak, chancellor
- Sajid Javid, health secretary
- Will Quince, children’s minister
- Alex Chalk, solicitor general
- Robin Walker, education minister
- John Glen, Treasury minister
- Victoria Atkins, justice minister
- Jo Churchill, environment minister
- Stuart Andrew, housing minister
- Kemi Badenoch, levelling up minister
- Neil O'Brien, levelling up minister
- Alex Burghart, education minister
- Lee Rowley, business minister
- Julia Lopez, culture minister
- Mims Davies, work and pensions minister
- Rachel Maclean, home office minister
- Mike Freer, equalities minister
- Jonathan Gullis, parliamentary private secretary to the Northern Ireland Office
- Saqib Bhatti, parliamentary private secretary to the Department of Health and Social Care
- Nicola Richards, parliamentary private secretary to the Department of Transport
- Virginia Crosbie, parliamentary private secretary to the Welsh Office
- Laura Trott, parliamentary private secretary to the Department of Transport
- Felicity Buchan, parliamentary private secretary to the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
- Selaine Saxby, parliamentary private secretary to the Treasury
- Claire Coutinho, parliamentary private secretary to the Treasury
- David Johnston, parliamentary private secretary to the Department of Education
- Duncan Baker, parliamentary private secretary to the Department for Levelling-Up
- Mark Logan, parliamentary private secretary to the Northern Ireland Office
- Bim Afolami, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party for youth
- Andrew Murrison, trade envoy to Morocco
- Theodora Clarke, trade envoy to Kenya
