A MOTION of no confidence has been introduced against Boris Johnson due to the Prime Minister's handling of partygate.
The early day motion was tabled by LibDem leader Sir Ed Davey on Thursday, January 13 and currently has the support of 18 MPs.
The motion asks: "That this House [Commons] has no confidence in the Prime Minister because he has broken the covid-19 lockdown laws his Government introduced, misled both Parliament and the public about it, and disastrously undermined public confidence in the midst of a pandemic."
It has the support of all 13 LibDem MPs as well as two from Labour, two from Plaid Cymru MPs and one Alliance member from Northern Ireland.
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The LibDems want Conservative MPs to back the motion in a bid to have it debated in the Commons, with the party pushing for a vote after Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.
The motion would have to be selected for a debate before a vote could go ahead.
While the motion may pick up more support from Labour MPs, the party's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has suggested that it is not a strategy that the party feels is likely to be successful.
Asked about the LibDem motion on Sky News, Streeting said: “I think you’ll have no trouble persuading opposition MPs to declare no confidence in the Prime Minister and vote for it.
“The challenge though, and this is the central issue here, is the only mechanism for removing the Prime Minister ultimately sits in the hands of Conservative MPs.”
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The Tories currently have a working majority in the House of Commons of 77 with a total of 360 MPs out of a total of 650.
In order for it to be successful, the motion would require the backing of a significant number of Tory MPs if it went to a vote.
In 2019, then-prime-minister Theresa May survived a no-confidence vote by 325 to 306 votes but she would eventually quit months later due to lack of support for her Brexit deal.
The SNP are calling for Tory MPs to remove Johnson from office by sparking a leadership election in the Conservative Party. So far, only six Tory MPs have publicly called for Johnson to resign.
Pete Wishart MP said: "By refusing to show him the door, Tory MPs are demonstrating they have no integrity and blowing any last remnants of credibility."
The Labour party currently has 198 MPs but they have repeated that they see three ways that the Prime Minister could go: resigning of his own accord, a Tory leadership contest or by being voted out.
Johnson has shown no signs of being prepared to quit and a General Election is next pencilled in for 2024, meaning two of those three options appear to be off the cards.
A Tory Party leadership contest could be triggered if Johnson were to lose a confidence vote among his own MPs.
A total of 54 letters of no confidence would have to be submitted to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, for a vote to be held.
If the PM lost that majority poll, a leadership contest would start, with Johnson unable to run as a candidate. If he survives, he would be granted a 12-month reprieve from future party no-confidence bids.
Brady does not publicly state how many letters he has received, but reports suggest about 20 might have been handed in, meaning the threshold for a no-confidence vote would still be some way off being met.
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