Under the Conservative Party’s complicated and somewhat self-harming rules, a confidence vote is held when 15% of its MPs send letters calling for one
detailed “failures of leadership and judgement in No 10 and the Cabinet Office”. Voters are expected to deliver a harsh verdict in two forthcoming by-elections. Now a vote of no confidence has been triggered, and will be held on the evening of June 6th. How do Conservative MPs go about removing a prime minister? And who would choose Mr Johnson’s successor?
Under the Conservative Party’s abstruse and somewhat self-harming rules, which generate contests regardless of whether the timing suits the party, a confidence vote is held when 15% of its MPs send letters calling for one to the chair of the 1922 committee representing the party’s backbenchers. There are 359 Tory MPs, so at least 54 have written in. All MPs may vote in the ballot, with the result dictated by a simple majority. If Mr Johnson wins, he stays on as leader.
If Mr Johnson loses, he would no longer be Conservative leader . Selecting a new leader would then involve two processes. First, the candidates must win the votes of fellow MPs. In consecutive rounds of voting, the candidate in last place is eliminated each time, until only two remain. These two names are then put forward to the estimated 180,000 members of the Conservative Party. They are the happy few who would have a direct say on who becomes Britain’s next prime minister.
Britain, then, can change its prime minister without the bother of a general election. It is relatively common. After Mrs May resigned between elections, Mr Johnson saw off other Tories to succeed her, as Mrs May did after David Cameron quit. The leader who can command a majority in the House of Commons is asked by the queen to form a government, however they end up in that position.
Mr Johnson might discern some light in the gloom. It is one thing to muster 54 MPs fed up with the prime minister. It is quite another to persuade 180 to vote against him. Another Conservative prime minister would have to deal with a difficult period of rising inflation and the terrible state in which many public services have emerged from the pandemic.
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