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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson narrowly survived a no-confidence vote
Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom’s scandal-plagued prime minister, narrowly survived a no-confidence vote today that would have ousted him from his position as the head of the Conservative Party and reshuffled the British government.
There were 211 votes for Boris, 148 to remove him demonstrating that the prime minister has lost the support of a broad swath of his coalition and reaffirms that he is in his most precarious position since assuming office.
Since December 2021, Johnson has contended with a steady drip of reports that he and members of his staff attended raucous parties at 10 Downing Street while the rest of the country was under strict Covid lockdown. Johnson initially denied that his staff had broken Covid restrictions, only for new details to emerge contradicting that account.
The Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said that the vote would be a devastating blow to Johnson no matter how it played out. It’s “the beginning of the end,” he declared.