A MEMBER of the backbench committee for Tory MPs has hinted its rules may be rewritten to allow a fresh confidence vote in Boris Johnson after today’s double byelection defeat.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the treasurer of the 1922 Committee, said his party had “some difficult decisions to make, no doubt” about how to move forward.

Mr Johnson survived a confidence vote less than three weeks ago, when 41 per cent of his MPs voted to remove him from Downing Street.

Under the current rules of the 1922 rules, he cannot face a similar vote for a year.

However if enough Tory MPs demand it, the rules can be rewritten to allow one sooner.

The byelection results suggest the Tories could lose power thanks to a pincer movement from Labour in the north of England and the Liberal Democrats in the south.

Labour regained the red wall seat of Wakefield in West Yorkshire on a 12.7 per cent swing away from the Tories, while the Liberal Democrats took Tiverton & Honiton in Devon on a colossal 30% swing, overturning a Tory majority of more than 24,000.

It prompted Tory chairman Oliver Downden to resign his post, leaving the cabinet with a warning that the party “cannot carry on with business as usual”.

Conspicuously failing to offer the PM any support, he stressed he would always remain loyal to the party, a hint that other Tory MPs should do likewise and remove Mr Johnson.

Sir Geoffrey told Radio 4 there was “no doubt” the Tories would find it “difficult to hold” his Cotswolds seat in a by-election, despite a 20,214-vote majority over the LibDems.

He said: “If I were to run under a bus today it would be difficult to hold my seat, there’s no doubt about that. I feel very sorry for all our volunteers and indeed my colleagues, and indeed myself, who work very hard in these by-elections, but were simply defeated by the situation that we find ourselves in at the moment.”

He said MPs would in the coming days decide whether to take steps to oust their leader.

He said: “I’m not going to come out this morning and speculate on behalf of my colleagues as to whether we should or shouldn’t change the rules [of the 1922 committee]. 

“Clearly what’s going to happen over the next few days is the Prime Minister is going to set out to both his Cabinet and with us as Members of Parliament.

“We will then in the parliamentary party have to make a judgment as to whether we think that is a satisfactory explanation or whether we should actually take steps to have a new Prime Minister.”

The Tory grandee, who voted against Mr Johnson in the confidence vote over his leadership, added: “I’ve got an AGM tonight, I will consider what my members say, I will then discuss this matter with my colleagues, we will hear what the Prime Minister says and then we will have to make some difficult decisions, no doubt.”

Veteran MP Sir Roger Gale said Mr Johnson had “trashed” the reputation of the Tory Party.

He said the PM was choosing to “hang onto the door handle at No 10” but “it can’t go on forever and it certainly won’t go on until the next general election”.

Asked if he saw Mr Dowden’s resignation as a trigger for more expressions of discontent from the Cabinet, he told BBC Breakfast: “It is possible that that may happen, but it is up to my colleagues in the Cabinet to decide whether they can go on supporting a Prime Minister who, frankly, has trashed the reputation of the Conservative Party, my party, for honesty, for decency, for integrity and for compassion.”

Sir Roger said the Tories were “spoilt for choice” for new leaders, but refused to name any.

“There are several people who would make very good prime ministers within the party and one of those will emerge between now and the next general election and lead us into the next general election, which I trust we shall win,” he said.

Tory peer Lord Barwell, who was Theresa May’s chief of staff in No 10, said that if the Tory  party carried on as before, it would be “sleepwalking to a defeat at the next election”.

He said the Tiverton and Honiton result was “catastrophic” for the Tories.

“It’s one of the safest Conservative seats in the country. It’s a strongly Leave-supporting constituency. 

“So, for the Liberal Democrats to be winning there, and winning comfortably, it means that there’s a whole swathe of seats across the south of the country that are vulnerable.”

Referring to Mr Dowden quitting as party chair, he said he was “very pleased” someone senior in the party seemed to have “finally” recognised this and done something about it.

He said Mr Johnson’s authority was “very significantly diminished” and “draining away”.

Lord Barwell told Sky News that other cabinet ministers now had to ask themselves what it did to their own reputations if they continued to stand by him.

“The evidence is mounting up that he has lost the support of the public that he once had, that it looks extraordinarily unlikely that he’s going to be able to win that back,” he said.

“So, if they allow him to carry on, then they’re going to allow him to lead the Conservative Party to a significant defeat at the next election.”

Former Tory MP and minister Rory Stewart said Mr Dowden’s resignation “feels like the beginning of the end” for Mr Johnson.

He tweeted: “A devastating resignation for Boris Johnson because it comes from one of his earliest and most passionate supporters, who backed many of his cultural fights, and risked his reputation defending him for years. This feels like the beginning of the end.”

Former Lord Chancellor Sir Robert Buckland said he had told Mr Johnson personally that he needed to “look in the mirror and do better”.

He also told Sky News the Tory party was “about more than one man”, but stopped short of calling for the PM to quit, saying “throwing over the captain now” was not the right response.

He went on: “What is frustrating for those of us now on the side, if you like, is that lack of focus and a real sense of a coordinated message here about what the Government is doing and what it needs to do.

“The Conservative Party is a broad coalition of people who have different views across the centre right in politics. We need to reflect that far, far better – we’re not a sect, we’re not some iconoclastic tribe trying to overthrow the state.”

He added: “I know this Prime Minister’s personality and his character tends to dominate politics in a way that we haven’t seen since perhaps the days of Tony Blair of Margaret Thatcher, but the Conservative Party is about more than one man.”

The former justice secretary added: “I don’t think that throwing over the captain now would be the right response, that would be, once again, Conservative MPs turning in on themselves and worrying about themselves rather than listening to constituents and fellow residents, as I do here in Swindon.

“This is a much bigger story than the story of one man and his career. He needs to, as I’ve said to him myself, look in the mirror and make sure that he does better.”


Home Sedretary Priti Patel said Mr Dowden’s resignation was a “loss” to the Government.

She told LBC: “It’s right that we listen to the voters from both of those constituencies, it’s right that we carry on with our service to them, but also recognise the issues that they themselves are raising and have raised on the doorstep, I went to both by-elections too, and we get on with the job.”

Asked if she thought there would be more resignations, after Oliver Dowden stood down as Tory Party chairman, she said: “I don’t, because, as I’ve said, you know, to govern is hard, and to govern we make choices and decisions, and we are working night and day, I can give you that assurance… focusing on these big issues.”

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said he was “sad” over the resignation of Mr Dowden but added he was “determined to continue working to tackle the cost of living”.

Writing on Twitter, he said: “I’m sad that my colleague and friend @OliverDowden took the decision to resign this morning. We all take responsibility for the results and I’m determined to continue working to tackle the cost of living, including delivering NICs changes saving 30 million people on average £330.”

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said the Government needed to be “relentlessly focused” after facing “distractions” such as partygate.

He told BBC Radio 4: “I think we’ve had distractions because of partygate, because of too much Westminster internal focus when people want to see us focused on their priorities.

“But if I look at what we’re doing, you’ve got the Chancellor tackling the cost of living challenges, it’s a £37 billion package of support, you’ve got the Transport Secretary taking measures this week to help us deal with the RMT strikes, which Labour [were] in total shambles about, I published a Bill of Rights.”

Questioned repeatedly if things would change following the losses, Raab said: “Yes, we’re going to be relentlessly focused on delivery, not allow the distractions of recent times to take our eye off the ball.”

He added: “Of course we’re going to listen but what I’m telling you, the central message is that, and I think particularly from Tiverton, where our own supporters stayed home, and that’s the big thing that I think I would extrapolate, we’ve got to be talking to the public, giving and delivering the public what we said we’d do.

“We’ve got a great plan from the reforms in schools, to the NHS, the criminal justice, the crime fighting plan, but we’ve got to be relentlessly focused on it. The change, to answer your question squarely, is not allowing anything to get in the way of that. I think that’s something the Prime Minister, the whole Cabinet, will be focused on.”