Analysis: With 148 votes against him, the task of governing is likely to become more, not less difficult in the months ahead
While they are not a coherent group of zealots, of the kind that ultimately saw off Theresa May over Brexit policy, his detractors do share a set of concerns they may now feel emboldened to pursue more vocally – including by withholding their support in the voting lobbies.
The former minister Jesse Norman – biographer of the Conservative intellectual hero Edmund Burke – pointed in his blistering letter on Monday to the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, and the ban on noisy protests. Afterwards, one ally delivered an extraordinarily tone deaf briefing to waiting journalists, asking them: “Is there anyone here who hasn’t got pissed in their lives? Is there anyone here who doesn’t like a glass of wine to decompress?”
Indeed, his margin of victory was narrower than May’s: the 211 votes he won represent 59% of the parliamentary party – a smaller proportion than the 63% she secured. Take out the payroll vote of about 130 MPs, and he won the support of just 80-odd backbenchers, against 148 who rejected his leadership. To put it more simply: 41% of Johnson’s MPs no longer have confidence in him.
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