Boris Johnson Survives No Confidence Vote, Remains PM of United Kingdom

Boris Johnson survived a no-confidence vote and stayed in office on Monday when MPs from his Conservative political party voted on whether he should keep his job.

Johnson needed only a simple majority of the 359 Conservative MPs to vote in his favor. According to The Associated Press, he won with 211 votes in his favor and 148 votes against him.

A vote of no confidence in the Conservative Party is triggered if the party’s leaders receive letters of request from at least 15% of sitting Conservative members of Parliament. Conservative Party official Graham Brady said Monday morning that that threshold had been passed.

The prime minister of the United Kingdom is not directly elected to serve in the role, but appointed by the political party that wins the majority of seats in Parliament. If Johnson had lost the vote on Monday, the Conservative Party, which holds the majority, would have chosen a new leader to automatically take over as prime minister.

Earlier this month, Johnson was fined by the police for breaking the law after an investigation found that he and his colleagues had held and attended parties during the height of Britain’s coronavirus lockdown in 2020.

Known as the “partygate” scandal, the revelation that government officials were having wine and cheese in Johnson’s official residence at Number 10 Downing Street — all caught in photographs — while members of the public were prevented from visiting dying relatives under COVID-19 restrictions they had devised sparked mass outrage.

An internal government investigation found there had been “failures of leadership and judgment,” and that the “senior leadership team” should be held responsible.

Source: cbsnews.com