The Conservative former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has called on his fellow Tories to remove Boris Johnson as prime minister in Monday evening’s confidence vote.
Hunt has said that he will be “voting for change” when he casts his ballot, warning that the party would lose the next general election if Johnson were to lead the Conservatives into it.
Hunt wrote on Twitter: “Having been trusted with power, Conservative MPs know in our hearts we are not giving the British people the leadership they deserve. We are not offering the integrity, competence and vision necessary to unleash the enormous potential of our country.”
Johnson has made a statement of his own to Conservative MPs ahead of the ballot, urging them to back him and insisting that the party can “deliver” and “unite” in government under his leadership.
The PM has also written to backbench Conservatives, saying that by placing their trust in his leadership it could “end the media’s favourite obsession” and allow the government to focus on the people’s priorities.
Meanwhile, Johnson’s cabinet ministers have rallied around him in support, with culture secretary Nadine Dorries hitting out at Hunt for “destabilising the country” by making a public show of opposition against the PM.
Dorries went on to say that Hunt was merely playing to his personal leadership ambitions and had been “wrong about almost everything” and is “wrong again now.”
Dorries also criticised Hunt’s tenure as health secretary, saying that between 2012 and 2018 when he was in the position, he had failed to adequately prepare for the threat of health emergencies such as a pandemic.
The culture secretary separately told the BBC regarding her comments on social media: “It's nothing I want to say, but I'm incredibly disappointed that Jeremy Hunt - who said throughout ‘I'm not going to challenge the prime minister while there's a war in Ukraine’ - has come out and challenged the prime minister on the day Russia sends rockets into Kiev.”
Tory MPs will vote on Johnson’s future between 18:00 and 20:00 BST. If he loses, he will be forced to resign as leader of the Conservative party and a leadership contest will take place to determine the next Tory leader and his successor as PM.
If Johnson survives the ballot, he will be protected from facing another no-confidence vote for up to a year under party rules.
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
