A WOUNDED Boris Johnson has vowed to carry on as Prime Minister despite more than two-fifths of his MPs declaring him unfit for the job.

The Prime Minister last night refused to resign after winning a confidence vote triggered in large part by the Partygate scandal and his response to it by 211 to 148 votes.

The result was far worse than his supporters had predicted in advance of the vote.

Although Mr Johnson was able to claim victory by winning more than a majority of the 359 Tory MPs in the secret ballot, the margin of his win was dangerously thin, and his premiership remains in peril.

However, the Prime Minister insisted 148 of his MPs opposing him was a “good result” and he was “pleased” with it.

He said: “I think it’s a convincing result, a decisive result, and what it means is that as a Government we can move on and focus on the stuff that really matters to people.”

He said the party and Government could now come together, take the country forward, and put issues “the media” wanted to focus on behind it.

He added that meant action on the cost-of-living crisis, clearing Covid backlogs, making the streets safer, levelling up the country and strengthening the economy.

He said he had no plans for a snap election to settle his future, but refused to rule one out.

In 2018, when Mr Johnson’s fellow Brexiters triggered a similar vote on Theresa May, she remained Prime Minister after winning by 200 to 117.

However the fact that 37 per cent of her MPs refused to support her proved fatal to her authority and she resigned six months later after disastrous European election results.

The Herald:

The scale of opposition to Mr Johnson was even bigger, with 41% of his MPs voting against him.

He now faces serial Commons rebellions by his critics and legislative paralysis as his opponents try to force him to stand down.

He also faces defeat in two by-elections on June 23 triggered by Tory MPs resigning in disgrace.

The Tories are expected to be thrashed in the red wall seat of Wakefield by Labour, while the Liberal Democrats are set to overturn a 24,239-vote Tory majority in Tiverton and Honiton.

Under current rules, Mr Johnson cannot face another confidence vote within 12 months, but if both by-elections are lost, the rules could be changed to allow one far sooner.

The Commons privileges committee is also investigating whether the PM misled Parliament when he denied there was Covid rule-breaking in Downing Street.

The police ultimately issued 126 fines to 83 people for events in and around Downing Street, including one to the PM and his wife Carrie.

The final report by Whitehall watchdog Sue Gray into the affair last month painted a picture of widespread disregard for the lockdown rules imposed on the country during the pandemic, and criticised “failures of leadership” at the official and political level.

Read more: Sue Gray report — Details of rows, drunken parties and vomiting staff laid bare

However Mr Johnson has not only faced criticism over Partygate.

His backing for Chancellor Rishi Sunak to raise taxes to their highest level since the 1950s, and to increase public spending to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis, has angered Tory MPs who fear the party is losing its low tax, small government identity.

Polls have shown a steady Labour lead since the new year, with focus groups of former Tory voters calling the PM a liar and out of touch.

Mr Johnson suffered a new low at the weekend when flag-waving royalists outside St Paul’s Cathedral booed him as he arrived for a service for the Queen’s Jubilee, showing his unpopularity is widespread.

The Tories also lost 500 councillors in May’s elections, with a LibDem revival in the south and a Labour one in the north spelling potential defeat in the 2024 General Election.

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi insisted the PM had won “handsomely”. He said: “It’s a ballot. 50 plus one is a majority. Boris did much better than that.”

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss added on Twitter: “Pleased that colleagues have backed the Prime Minister. I support him 100%. Now’s the time to get on with the job.”

Nicola Sturgeon said the result was “surely the worst of all worlds for the Tories”, saddling the UK “with an utterly lame duck PM”. She added: “And For Scotland, it just underlines the democratic deficit - only 2 of 59 MPs have confidence in the PM.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said a divided Tory party was now “propping up Boris Johnson with no plan to tackle the issues” people faced every day.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “Conservative MPs are now fully responsible for the Prime Minister’s behaviour. They have narrowly voted to keep a lawbreaker and liar in Number 10.

“Whilst Boris Johnson has clung on today - make no mistake, his reputation is in tatters and his authority is now totally shot.”

SNP Westminster Leader Ian Blackford said Tory MPs “bottled it” instead of getting rid of Mr Johnson.

He said: “The UK is now stuck in limbo with a lame duck Prime Minister who has lost the confidence of the public - and more than forty per cent of his own MPs - and is left limping around on borrowed time while the Tory party descends into bitter division.”

Tory MP Sir Charles Walker warned of a “guerilla war” at Westminster.

“Does the parliamentary party say, ‘Right, OK, we’ve had the confidence vote, is it now time to move on, get behind the Prime Minister? ’Or will there be a temptation to sort of have a rolling maul, a guerrilla war, for the next six, 12, 18, 24 months?”

Rory Stewart, the former Tory MP and leadership contender against Mr Johnson in 2019, said: “This is the end for Boris Johnson. The only question is how long the agony is prolonged.”

The vote was triggered by 54 Tory MPs, 15% of the parliamentary party, submitting letters of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the backbenchers’ 1922 committee.

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Sir Graham told Mr Johnson the threshold had been reached on Sunday shortly before the latter attended the Platinum Jubilee pageant in London

A Tory source told The Guardian the PM failed to tell his aides about Sir Graham’s call during the pageant, as he didn’t have time. “He sat there smiling at the performances for a couple of hours, wondering what to do.”

After a steady trickle of Tory MPs calling for Mr Johnson to quit in the wake of the Sue Gray report, the vote had been widely expected, as had Mr Johnson winning it.

However it was still a dramatic day at Westminster, which started with former Treasury minister Jesse Norman launching an excoriating attack.

In a letter to the PM, the Hereford MP accused him of presiding over a “culture of casual law-breaking” in Downing Street, and calling his claim to have been vindicated by the Gray report “grotesque”.

He told the PM that he was “putting the Union itself gravely at risk” with “deeply questionable” and “almost certainly illegal” plans to overhaul the Northern Ireland Protocol. The government lacked a “sense of mission” and had “no long-term plan”, he added.

He blamed Mr Johnson for “simply seeking to campaign” and creating distractions along political and cultural dividing lines “mainly for your advantage, as a time when the economy is struggling, inflation is soaring and growth is anaemic at best.”

He warned that any breach of the Northern Irish Protocol would be “economically very damaging, politically foolhardy and almost certainly illegal”.

He added: “You are the leader of the Conservative and Unionist party, yet you are putting the Union itself gravely at risk,” he said.

He said the Government’s Rwanda policy was “ugly, likely to be counterproductive and of doubtful legality” and that plans to privatise Channel 4 were “unnecessary and provocative”.

The devastating catalogue of complaints was released a few minutes before it was officially announced by Sir Graham that Mr Johnson would face a confidence vote in the evening.

Number 10 fought back, describing the vote as an “opportunity” to draw a line under distractions and move on.

A series of cabinet ministers also took to social media and the airwaves to declare their loyalty to the PM and urged colleagues to support him.

Most praised the PM’s decisions on the Covid vaccine and Ukraine, while skating over Partygate.

Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and other ministers also stressed that Mr Johnson would carry on if he won by a single vote.

When Mr Rees-Mogg was reminded that in 2018 he said Mrs May losing by 83 votes had been a “terrible result” and she ought to resign, he said he had been “wrong” before.

Mr Johnson also wrote to his MPs, adding personal touches to letters, warning them not to lose focus on the government’s priorities, and warning that if they voted against him it would only give succour to the opposition.

In recognition of the fears over rising taxes, he held out the prospect of tax cuts, although he was vague on detail.

There were reports of whips and aides trying to shore up support for him with offers of new positions and jobs.

But throughout the day, Mr Johnson suffered setback after setback.

Tory MP John Penrose quit as the Government’s anti-corruption tsar, as the PM had “breached a fundamental principle of the ministerial code” by failing to provide proper leadership over Partygate and so ought to resign.

Former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, runner-up to Mr Johnson in the 2019 leadership contest and tipped as a future candidate, also came out publicly against the Prime Minister.

“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,” he said.

Read more: Nadine Dorries launches furious attack on Jeremy Hunt

It prompted a bitter and highly personal attack from the PM’s loyal culture secretary Nadine Dorries, who accused Mr Hunt of “duplicity” and destabilising the party and country to serve his own ambition.

Mr Johnson’s former spindoctor Will Walden emphasised only defeat in the confidence vote would remove Mr Johnson from Downing Street.

“Boris will be taken kicking and screaming out of the front door of Number 10. There is no way that the thing that he has wanted all his life he is going to give up easily on.”

He predicted anything less than an emphatic win for Mr Johnson meant “death by a thousand cuts”, with rebellions and paralysis in parliament.

“History does dictate that if a prime minister survives a confidence vote but doesn’t survive it convincingly, then ultimately you bleed to death,” he said.

The influential ConservativeHome website released a snap poll of Tory members showing, for the first time, that a majority wanted rid of Johnson.

The survey found 55% wanted him out and 41% wanted him to stay.

At 4pm, Mr Johnson spent just under half an hour addressing his MPs in the Commons, urging them to end their navel gazing and unite.

He warned “pointless” internal strife could see the Tories cast out of power.

Trying to counter the impression he is now an electoral liability, he said that under his leadership the party had won its biggest electoral victory in 40 years, and warned Tory splits risked the “utter disaster” of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party entering Downing Street, propped up by the SNP.

“The only way we will let that happen is if we were so foolish as to descend into some pointless fratricidal debate about the future of our party,” he said.

He also offered imminent action on taxes and help with home ownership.

He took five questions, two of which were “hostile”, a party source said.

Former chief whip Mark Harper said if the PM stayed in post, MPs would have to “defend the indefensible”.

The source said Mr Johnson rejected this “very, very aggressively”.

After the meeting, the arch Brexiteer Steve Baker, who had helped remove Mrs May, said it was “a very very sad day” but “He [Mr Johnson] has clearly broken the law and he should go.”

Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross then said he would vote against the PM, and Scottish Borders MP John Lamont quit the Government to do likewise.

Voting took place from 6 to 8pm, with the result declared at 9pm.