How does Boris Johnson bounce back from 148 members of his own party expressing no confidence in him? The Prime Minister is claiming the fact he won the result means he can now move on and focus on the government’s priorities. But privately Boris Johnson’s allies concede the result is worse than they anticipated. ‘He’s toast,’ says a former minister. Another senior Tory describes it as a ‘fatal blow’.
Another senior Tory describes it as a ‘fatal blow’
Expect a blame game to follow. There is a frustration among some of Johnson’s supporters that the operation to keep him in place has slacked in recent weeks. Earlier this year the shadow whipping operation – made up of key allies such as Nigel Adams, Conor Burns and Chris Heaton-Harris – succeeded in shoring up his position at a moment of peril. Yet in the past week during recess there was little effort to reach out to MPs as more came out to call for Johnson to go.
Even today it was striking that several MPs complained they had not been contacted by Downing Street personally to check which way they were voting.

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