The prime minister is damaged; so are the country and his party. His relief will not be long-lived, says Guardian columnist Martin Kettle
‘Boris Johnson is not yet out of the woods.’Photograph: Alberto Pezzali/AFP/Getty Imagestonight only by 211 to 148 votes, with all 359 Conservative MPs casting ballots. It is a win, but it is also a disaster for the prime minister.
That is because, with the unpopular Johnson losing his electoral allure but now reconfirmed, but only just, as Tory leader, the opposition parties are now on course to oust thefrom office in the next general election. A new Tory leader might have had time to rebuild the party’s image. Johnson cannot do that.
Second, there’s the situation at Westminster. The Tory party was already difficult enough to manage. Now it is even more ungovernable than before. The scale of the vote against Johnson is very large. A hundred and forty-eight MPs voted against Johnson – more than those that voted against Theresa May in 2018. This deals a lasting blow to the prime minister’s authority. With Jeremy Hunt now openly offering an alternative, there are now at least two Tory parties in parliament.
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