ANDREA Leadsom has hit out at Boris Johnson’s “unacceptable failings of leadership”.
The former business secretary is the 40th Tory MP to publicly criticise the Prime Minister over the Partygate row.
In a letter to her constituents, shared online, Dame Andrea said the “extent and severity” of the rule-breaking in No 10 exposed in the Sue Gray report meant it was “extremely unlikely” the senior leadership did not know what was going on.
“The conclusion I have drawn from the Sue Gray report is that there have been unacceptable failings of leadership that cannot be tolerated and are the responsibility of the Prime Minister,” she said.
“I therefore agree with Sue Gray’s conclusions that there have been significant failures of leadership, both political and official, in No 10 and the Cabinet Office,” she wrote.
The MP for South Northamptonshire added: “Each of my Conservative MP colleagues and I must now decide individually on what is the right course of action that will restore confidence in our government.”
However, it’s not clear if she has submitted a letter to the backbench 1922 committee calling for a vote of no confidence in Mr Johnson’s leadership.
Under party rules, a secret ballot is triggered when Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the committee, receives letters from 54 Tory MPs.
Reports this morning suggested that even if the threshold is breached, the announcement of the vote could be delayed until Monday when the House of Commons returns after the Queen’s jubilee celebrations.
Shortly after Dame Andrea's comments, John Stevenson, the MP for Carlisle announced that he had submitted a letter.
He said a vote of no confidence was the only way to "draw a line under all the recent issues surrounding activities in No 10."
Mr Stevenson added: "The continuing criticism, revelations and questions are debilitating for the government at a time when there are so many other important and critical issues to be addressed.
"Sadly, the Prime Minister appears unwilling to bring matters to a head and submit himself to such a vote.
"Therefore, the only option is for the Conservative MPs to facilitate a vote of no confidence. I have already taken the appropriate action."
In an interview this morning, former party leader, William Hague said the Prime Minister was clearly “in real trouble”.
He suggested there could be a vote within the next four weeks.
The peer described the response to the publication of Sue Gray’s report as “one of those sort of slow-fuse explosions in politics”.
Lord Hague told Times Radio: “It’s still going along.
“A lot of people misread it really, the events of last week as meaning the trouble is over, Boris is free and that’s actually not the mood in the Conservative Party, which is very, very troubled about the contents of that report.
“So I think the Conservative Party will need to resolve this one way or another, obviously because to be an effective party they either need to rally behind the Prime Minister they’ve got, or they need to decide to force him out.
“I think they’re moving towards either next week or around the end of June, they are moving towards having a ballot, it looks like that.”
Dame Andrea, a Brexiteer, and Vote Leave ally of Johnson, is one of the most high profile critics of the Prime Minister to have broken cover in recent days.
She was business secretary in Johnson’s first cabinet and backed for the leadership after her own bid failed.
Lord Hague suggested she could be “the fuse”.
“The fuse is getting closer to the dynamite here and it's speeding up,” he said.
Monday saw four new MPs publicly criticise Mr Johnson, including Jeremy Wright, a former attorney-general, Elliot Colburn and Nickie Aiken, who both entered the Commons in 2019, and Andrew Bridgen, who withdrew a letter of no confidence when the war in Ukraine began but has now resubmitted it.
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