LABOUR has urged Boris Johnson to call a snap election.
Ian Murray, the party’s shadow secretary of state for Scotland, said the Prime Minister should “take the short trip to Buckingham Palace, request that the Parliament and government is dissolved, and go to the country and let the people decide”.
Last night, shortly after his narrow win in the confidence vote, Mr Johnson was asked a number of times to rule out a vote and declined to do so. He only said he was “certainly not interested in snap elections.”
Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme, Mr Murray said it would be the “best way forward”.
“If Boris Johnson thinks after last night’s vote he can command the respect and support of the country, then why doesn’t he take the short trip to Buckingham Palace, request that the Parliament and Government is dissolved, and go to the country and let the people decide?” Mr Murray said.
“That would be the best way to resolve this situation.”
The Labour MP said tabling a motion of no confidence on behalf of opposition parties could risk “undermining” the impact of 148 Tory MPs voting against their leader.
The SNP’s Ian Blackford said he would “relish the opportunity” of an election.
He told the BBC: "If it hadn’t been Boris Johnson, if it was somebody else that recognised this was about integrity, it’s about trust, it’s about someone that’s in a leadership position that’s breached the trust, I would argue, that’s been given to them by the electorate in 2019, he would have gone by now.
"He has no support from the Scottish Conservatives, he has really got every party from Scotland lined up against him. We want him gone.”
Mr Blackford said the Prime Minister was now a “dead man walking”.
He told the PA: “Whether he goes today or whether it’s some months down the line this is a dead man walking, this is a man that will pay a price for his behaviour.
The SNP Westminster leader said he thought it more likely that the Prime Minister would be removed by the Privileges Committee following the conclusion of their inquiry into whether or not he lied to the Commons over Partygate.
He said: “A Prime Minister that signalled yesterday that he would do everything that he’d done all over again, he would have attended these parties, failing to recognise that these parties were against the law, it’s that signal that the rules don’t apply to him the way that they do for everyone else.
“Rules are for little people, but not the Prime Minister. That’s not the behaviour of someone who can remain in office, its someone that quite simply needs to be removed from office.”
Asked about speculation that Boris Johnson may call an early general election, Tory MP Lee Anderson called it “a lot of nonsense”.
“It’s just speculation, and it’s probably a lot of nonsense, and the press have been on a bit of a witch hunt for the boss since day one.
“All this speculation, who’s saying it? I’ve not had anybody say it in my party, so that’s probably just nonsense,” the MP for Ashfield added.
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