Jeremy Hunt urges Tories to oust Boris Johnson in confidence vote — follow live

Key moments Vote on PM’s leadership to be held between 6pm and 8pm Rebels fear they do not have 180 votes to oust Johnson PM says vote is ‘golden chance’ to end months of speculation Johnson was booed outside St Paul’s service for Queen and at Jubilee pageant

Jeremy Hunt has called on Tory MPs to vote against Boris Johnson in tonight’s vote of confidence saying that fresh leadership is required if the Conservatives are going to retain power at the next election.

In a significant intervention hours before the secret ballot opens the former foreign secretary said he would be voting to remove the prime minister from office. “Today’s decision is change or lose,” he said. “I will be voting for change.”

Jeremy Hunt has urged Conservative MPs to “vote for change” in tonight’s confidence vote

Hunt said that unless his colleagues voted Johnson out then the electorate would vote the party out at the next election.

“Having been trusted with power, Conservative MPs know in our hearts we are not giving the British people the leadership they deserve,” he said. “We are not offering the integrity, competence and vision necessary to unleash the enormous potential of our country. And because we are no longer trusted by the electorate, who know this too, we are set to lose the next general election.”

Hunt is the most senior Tory so far to come out against the prime minister and other MPs may follow his lead.

This morning Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, announced that 54 MPs — amounting to a 15 per cent of the parliamentary party — had now lost faith in Johnson’s leadership. The vote will take place between 6pm and 8pm tonight with an announcement of the result to follow shortly afterwards.

Sir Graham Brady announces a confidence vote

The prime minister is confident that he has the support to see off a challenge. The Tory rebels need 180 votes to remove him from office.

At the weekend the rebels circulated a one-page memo listing 13 reasons to drop the prime minister, concluding that the “only way to restore Conservative fortunes to a point where we can win the next general election is to remove Boris Johnson”.

Zahawi not ruling out leadership bid

Nadhim Zahawi has refused to rule out running for the Tory leadership if Boris Johnson is ousted as prime minister.

The education secretary was asked three times if he would launch a campaign to take over if Johnson loses tonight’s confidence vote.

Zahawi pledged his support to the prime minister, but did not respond to the questions about his own ambitions.

Nadhim Zahawi repeatedly declined to answer the question of whether he would run

WIKTOR SZYMANOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES

“I feel sad and heartbroken that colleagues are currently having to attack one another. I think that’s wrong. I think we have to come together,” he told the BBC’s World at One.

Asked if he would consider a leadership bid in the event that Johnson is ousted, he said: “It would be a disaster for us to now rid ourselves of a leader who has made the tough calls when it really matters to this nation.”

Asked again, he said: “You enjoy asking this question because it will grab you headlines to say one of his cabinet ministers has come out and taken a different position. I’m not going to do that because Boris will be our prime minister.”

Zahawi also criticised Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, who said he would vote to remove Johnson.

“To change the prime minister is to destabilise this government when there is war in Europe. Six days ago, Jeremy Hunt felt the same way as I did. I hope he will change his mind today after coming out and saying differently,” he said.

‘Febrile’ mood among Tories as Labour ‘get the popcorn ready’

MPs usually enjoy a slow return to Westminster on Mondays, given Commons proceedings don’t start until 2.30pm, but this morning a striking number of Tories were spotted streaming onto the parliamentary estate (Lucy Fisher writes).

Conservative MPs describe the mood in the party as “febrile” and admit they are frantically swapping views and predictions with each other, in person and over WhatsApp.

One Tory MP on the government payroll said of the confidence vote: “I think it’s going to be far, far closer than many people expect. If the PM does worse than Theresa May [who won her confidence vote with 63 per cent], it’s curtains. I do think he’ll edge it though. I’ve been through a list of colleagues and counted how I think people will vote — the absolute max I can see for the rebels is 170.”

Some arch-critics of Johnson expressed mirth that they had been left off the distribution list for the prime minister’s “Dear Colleague” letter, which was sent to most Tory MPs seeking to rally their support.

Labour figures, meanwhile, are cock-a-hoop over the developments, describing either a victory or loss for the prime minister in the vote tonight as “win-win” for the opposition.

“We’re getting in the popcorn,” said a source close to the Labour leader, revelling in the interventions of Tory MPs including Jesse Norman and John Penrose.

The Labour insider added: “It’s like a failing football club that keeps changing manager. Ultimately the Tories’ problems go far deeper than who’s leader. On key issues they don’t know what they stand for. Are they for high taxes or low taxes? Do they want to prioritise the red wall or the blue wall?”

The Labour insider claimed to have spoken in recent weeks with Tory figures who said the Conservatives could benefit from a short spell in opposition to reappraise and renew.

“It reminded me of the sort of thing some people in Labour were saying back in 2009,” the source said. “Let me warn them, there is nothing good in the slightest about being in opposition.”

Dorries takes swipe at Hunt in Johnson’s defence

A Boris Johnson ally has launched a public and personal attack on Jeremy Hunt after he called for the prime minister to go.

Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, took aim at Hunt on Twitter, telling the former health secretary that pandemic preparations had been “found wanting and inadequate” and that he had been “wrong about almost everything, you are wrong again now”.

Dorries, who has often spoken up to defend Johnson, said Hunt had told her the best way to deal with Covid was to remove those who tested positive from their homes and place them in isolation hotels.

Nadine Dorries claimed that Jeremy Hunt would have “handed the keys of No 10” to Jeremy Corbyn had he won the Tory leadership over Boris Johnson

HOLLIE ADAMS/GETTY IMAGES

In a Twitter thread she said: “Your handling of the pandemic would have been a disaster. Your pandemic preparation during six years as health secretary was found wanting and inadequate. Your duplicity right now in destabilising the party and country to serve your own personal ambition, more so.”

She said Hunt, who has not ruled out running for the Tory leadership, had predicted Johnson and the government would “swiftly collapse on [the] back of Brexit and you would swoop in”.

“If you had been leader you’d have handed the keys of No 10 to Corbyn,” she said. “You’ve been wrong about almost everything, you are wrong again now.”

Labour jumped on Dorries’s comments about the pandemic. Wes Streeting, the party’s shadow health secretary, said: “This is a revealing admission and damning indictment of the Conservatives’ pandemic preparedness.”

PM’s anti-corruption tsar quits and will vote against him

Boris Johnson’s anti-corruption tsar has resigned and accused the prime minister of breaching the ministerial code.

John Penrose, the MP for Weston-Super-Mare, called for Johnson to stand down saying he had failed to uphold standards of “leadership and integrity”.

He said he would vote against the prime minister in tonight’s ballot, adding that it was a matter of “when, not if” he should go.

Penrose said he had written his resignation letter yesterday and denied that it was part of a co-ordinated campaign.

“I don’t think this is organised,” he told Sky News. “I think what’s happening is people are having to reply to their constituents now the Sue Gray report is out and they are saying, ‘Can I look at myself in the mirror in the morning and look myself in the eye and feel like I’ve done the right thing?’”

“I think it’s over. We will have to wait and see what the result is. If he had a thumping victory this evening, then that might be different … It feels like the beginning of the end.”

Winning by one vote is enough, Rees-Mogg insists

Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested that Boris Johnson can continue to govern with authority even if he wins the challenge to his leadership by only one vote.

The minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency told Sky News that the threshold for calling a confidence vote, 15 per cent, “isn’t that many” MPs.

He suggested that it was only those with leadership ambitions or those against Brexit who wanted to remove the prime minister, who he said was a “great strength and stay in support” of leaving the European Union.

Jacob Rees-Mogg claimed it was only those who had leadership ambitions and were opposed to Brexit who were calling for Johnson to go

VICTORIA JONES/PA

But he said he would “fundamentally disagree” with suggestions that even if Johnson won the vote, he would be damaged going forward.

“In democracy, one [vote] is enough,” he said. “And I tried this line when I was not entirely supportive of Theresa May, saying she hadn’t won enough, and actually everyone said to me afterwards, that was absolute nonsense. And I had to eat a good deal of my own words.”

He said: “The election victory was a very personal victory. There are a lot of members of parliament who owe their seats directly to Boris Johnson and he has a mandate from the British people and that is important.”

Rees-Mogg also dismissed the booing of the prime minister as he arrived at a thanksgiving service for the Queen at St Paul’s Cathedral last week as a “mere bagatelle”.

The prime minister was booed as he arrived at St Paul’s on Friday

“A little bit of booing, a little bit of cheering, that is perfectly normal,” he said.

“I think you over interpret what happened, political figures must expect this. Bear in mind at the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, [the] most successful Conservative prime minister electorally, there were protests.”

What do previous confidence votes tell us?

Only two confidence votes have been conducted under the present rules before. The most recent was in December 2018, when Theresa May defeated pro-Brexit rebels (Henry Zeffman writes).

May won by 200 votes to 117, or with 63 per cent to 37 per cent. Boris Johnson will be mindful of the precedent. Yes, May won, but the scale of opposition revealed by the secret ballot was deeply uncomfortable for her. Her authority was already evaporating but the limp vote of confidence dented it further. If 133 Conservatives vote against Johnson then he will have done as badly in percentage terms as May.

There is a worse precedent, of course. The first time a confidence vote was triggered under the present rules was in November 2003, when the Conservatives were in opposition. A vote was triggered in Iain Duncan Smith who had been leader for just over two years. He lost by 90 votes to 75 and was replaced as leader by Lord Howard of Lympne.

There are other ballots in Conservative history which could, in hindsight, be taken in effect as confidence votes. In June 1995, when Sir John Major’s premiership was faltering he resigned as leader and called a ‘back me or sack me’ leadership election. Sir John Redwood, then Welsh secretary, ran against him.

Under the rules in place at the time, Major needed not only more votes than Redwood, but a buffer of 15 per cent of the electorate. He won by 66 per cent to 27 per cent. The equivalent of 27 per cent for Johnson is 97 MPs.

In November 1990 Margaret Thatcher was challenged for the leadership by Lord Heseltine. Under the rules, she needed — like Major — not just an absolute majority but a lead of 15 per cent of the electorate over Heseltine. Thatcher won 204 votes to Heseltine’s 152, or 55 per cent to his 41 per cent. This meant she was four votes short of victory. The contest went to a second round but Thatcher’s authority was so drained that her cabinet told her she would lose.

The equivalent of 41 per cent for Johnson is 147 votes.

PM makes plea for support in letter to Tory MPs

Boris Johnson has written a letter to all Conservative MPs in which he defends his leadership and urges them to back him in tonight’s vote.

He said the ballot was a “golden chance” to end months of speculation after the first revelations of Downing Street parties emerged at the end of last year.

He added that he had listened to criticism “where there have been valid points” and that he had made “significant changes”.

“With your support, I believe that tonight we have a great prize within our grasp. We can put an end to the media’s favourite obsession,” he said.

“I am absolutely confident that if we can unite in the days ahead then in due course we will win again, repay the trust of the 14 million who voted for us, and continue to serve the country we love.”

No 10 releases photos of Johnson in call with Zelensky

No 10 has released pictures of Boris Johnson speaking on the phone to President Zelensky of Ukraine this morning. Earlier a briefing note suggested that a leadership contest would be a distraction during the war in Ukraine.

ANDREW PARSONS/NO10 DOWNING STREET

ANDREW PARSONS/NO10 DOWNING STREET

Leadership contenders stay silent

About 40 Tory MPs have come out and expressed their public support for the prime minister this morning, including 17 cabinet ministers.

Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Nadhim Zahawi have all given their backing to Boris Johnson. However, there are already some figures who have remained conspicuously silent.

Penny Mordaunt, the international trade minister, has chosen not to publicly back Johnson and has instead said that she will take part in a D-Day commemoration service in her Portsmouth constituency this morning. Mordaunt is widely expected to run in the event that Johnson is ousted in the vote tonight.

Penny Mordaunt, who is expected to run if there is a Tory leadership contest, has not publicly backed Boris Johnson this morning

ALAMY

Others keeping their cards close to their chest include Tom Tugendhat, who is seen as a potential leadership challenger from the One Nation Group of Tory MPs.

Where Johnson does appear to enjoy strong support is in red wall constituencies which the Conservatives won for the first time in 2019.

The Conservative MPs for Workington, Bassetlaw, Redcar, Heywood and Middleton, Blackpool South and Wolverhampton South West have all issued supportive statements, suggesting that the prime minister still commands the personal loyalty of those who won their seats at the last election.

It’s the beginning of the end for Johnson, says Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, told LBC that the confidence vote represented “the beginning of the end” for Boris Johnson. He said that Tory MPs had “got to show some leadership and vote against the prime minister”, adding that it was a question of acting in the national interest.

Starmer is facing pressure himself over allegations that he attended an illegal gathering in Durham during lockdown. He has committed himself to standing down if he is fined by the police and said that he will not stand again. “I knew instinctively what I was going to do and I will stick with it,” he said.

Sir Keir Starmer urged Conservative MPs to act in the national interest

STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA

Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “It’s judgment day for Conservative MPs and their sleaze-ridden prime minister.

“If they fail to sack Boris Johnson, it will be an insult to all those who made sacrifices and suffered while he partied.”

Tory leadership contest would be ‘vicious’

Boris Johnson has warned Tory MPs that a leadership contest would be “vicious and tear the party apart”. No 10 said in a briefing note: “The only person who will benefit is Keir Starmer.”

In a 12-point, one-page document No 10 argues that backing Johnson “can put the distraction of the past months behind us” and argues that a leadership contest would be a distraction during the cost-of-living crisis and war in Ukraine.

By backing Johnson, the document states, Tory MPs can “choose to focus on growing the economy, cutting taxes, making our streets safer”.

It says that the prime minister “co-operated fully” with investigations into Downing Street parties and has a new team, and adds that Johnson “led this country through the biggest peacetime crisis in centuries” during the coronavirus pandemic.

In an effort to reassure MPs No 10 says that Johnson is a “proven and thoroughly tested election winner” and argues that governing parties are often behind in the polls in the middle of a term.

Read the full briefing note here:

Cabinet ministers spring to PM’s defence

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, backed Boris Johnson, writing on Twitter:

Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said he was standing by the prime minister despite having previously resigned from Boris Johnson’s cabinet in 2020 when he was chancellor.

Asked if he was sticking with Johnson this time, he told Today on BBC Radio 4: “I’m supporting the prime minister and I hope more of my colleagues do tonight.

“The prime minister will speak to my colleagues at the 1922 [Committee] meeting tonight and then they will of course make up their own mind.

“And, as I say that, let me be clear, I love my party. I think there’s a lot that we can be proud of. It’s a very proud democratic party.

“No leader that I’ve known of my party has got 100 per cent support from every single colleague but we make decisions through due process openly and transparently, and tonight is an opportunity to put all this behind us and get on with the job.”

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary and a potential leadership contender should Johnson lose the vote, tweeted:

Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, also backed Johnson, writing on Twitter: “The PM has got the big calls right — securing life-saving vaccines, firing up our economy and standing up to Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.

“We need to back him, unite and focus on delivering the people’s priorities.”

Michael Gove, the communities secretary, voiced his support for the prime minister, tweeting: “I’ll be voting for Boris this evening. The PM got the big decisions right on Brexit and Covid.

“We need to focus now on defending Ukraine, driving levelling-up and generating growth. We need to move past this moment and unite behind Boris to meet these challenges.”

Oliver Dowden, the Conservative Party chairman, also backed Johnson, tweeting:

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, wrote on Twitter: “With the cost of living rising, war in Europe and an economy to recover after Covid, now is not the time for a distracting and divisive leadership contest.

“[Boris Johnson] has my support — we must back him to get on with the job of delivering for the British people.”

Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, tweeted:

Johnson views confidence vote as opportunity

The clear line from Boris Johnson this morning is that he views the vote as an “opportunity” to draw a line under the speculation surrounding his leadership and move on (Steven Swinford writes).

Is he right? If the prime minister wins tonight’s vote he will be protected from another leadership contest under the current rules for another year. But as the prime minister’s critics have pointed out, those rules can change.

And whether the prime minister likes it or not, the margin of any win matters. Theresa May, his predecessor, won the support of 63 per cent of Tory MPs but was gone within seven months. Confidence votes are by their nature damaging, regardless of whether the prime minister wins.

Theresa May made a tearful statement outside No 10 when she announced her resignation in 2019, seven months after winning a confidence vote

LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES

A No 10 spokesman said: “Tonight is a chance to end months of speculation and allow the government to draw a line and move on, delivering on the people’s priorities.

“The PM welcomes the opportunity to make his case to MPs and will remind them that when they’re united and focused on the issues that matter to voters there is no more formidable political force.”

Javid, who is viewed as a potential leadership contender, echoed Johnson’s language but said people were right to be frustrated by the Downing Street parties scandal.

He told Today on BBC Radio 4: “We are a very proud, democratic party. Full respect for all my colleagues. I see it as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for the party to put behind all this frenzied speculation we’ve had over the last few days and get behind a programme of delivery. If he wins that draws a line under this.”

Brady’s announcement is short and to the point

The announcement from Sir Graham Brady was short and to the point. It stated that the threshold to trigger a leadership ballot had been reached — but not by how much — or when. More details of the contest are promised later today (Oliver Wright writes).

“The threshold of 15 per cent of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the leader of the Conservative Party has been exceeded.

Sir Graham Brady breaking the news that a vote is to be held

TOBY MELVILLE/REUTERS

“In accordance with the rules, a ballot will be held between 1800 and 2000 TODAY MONDAY 6th JUNE – details to be confirmed. The votes will be counted immediately afterwards. An announcement will be made at a time to be advised. Arrangements for the announcement will be released later today.”

While a simple majority would technically be enough to make Johnson safe, he is likely to have to win convincingly in order to see off his critics

Some Tory MPs have suggested that if over 100 Tory MPs vote against him then his position could become untenable in the longer term — much like Theresa May, who won her vote of confidence but was out of power within seven months.

Javid: PM will stand and fight his corner

Johnson will “stand and fight his corner” if he faces a confidence vote by Tory MPs, Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has said.

Javid said there “may well” be a vote amid mounting speculation at Westminster that the number of letters sent to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, has now reached the 54 needed to trigger a vote.

“This country doesn’t need a vote of confidence in the prime minister. What we need to be doing as a country is looking ahead to the challenges that exist,” Javid told Sky News.

Sajid Javid defended the prime minister during interviews this morning

VICTORIA JONES/PA

“If this threshold of 54 letters is reached there will be a confidence vote and in that case there should be. There may well be one.

“If there is, the prime minister will stand and fight his corner with a very, very strong case. So let’s just wait and see what happens.”

MPs return as confidence vote speculation mounts

Hello and welcome to The Times’s live politics coverage as MPs return to Westminster and speculation mounts that a confidence vote on the PM will be triggered.