Furious Tory MPs have said that Boris Johnson must show “humility” in the wake of the devastating by-election loss in North Shropshire by making a public apology for the string of blunders which have shredded the party’s popularity.
One former cabinet minister told The Independent that the days of Johnson being able to stride unscathed through scandal after scandal were over, saying: “The Teflon has come off.”
While few MPs believe that the prime minister is facing an imminent leadership challenge, many believe that he has only a matter of months to improve his performance or be subjected to a determined bid to remove him.
Veteran backbencher Sir Roger Gale became the first to confirm he has submitted a letter of no confidence to the chair of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, who will call a confidence vote if he receives requests from 55 MPs.
The North Thanet MP said the by-election result – which saw Liberal Democrats take North Shropshire from Tories for the first time in almost 200 years on a stupendous 34 per cent swing – must be seen as “a referendum on the prime minister’s performance”.
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“The prime minister is now in last orders time,” said Gale. “One more strike and he’s out.”
The former leader of Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, said that Mr Johnson was “drinking in the last chance saloon” after “badly fumbling” issues of sleaze, lockdown breaches and MPs’ second jobs.
UK news in pictures Show all 50
1/50UK news in pictures
UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election
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UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire
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UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle
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UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool
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UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster
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UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds
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UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds,
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UK news in pictures 10 December 2021 Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judge’s decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
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UK news in pictures 9 December 2021 Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service
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UK news in pictures 8 December 2021 Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine
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UK news in pictures 7 December 2021 Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow
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UK news in pictures 6 December 2021 A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra
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UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother
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UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square
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UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London
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UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum
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UK news in pictures 1 December 2021 Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar
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UK news in pictures 30 November 2021 Workers put the finishing touches to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree ahead of the lighting ceremony later in the week
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UK news in pictures 29 November 2021 Home Secretary Priti Patel is greeted by a police dog at a special memorial service for Met Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana
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UK news in pictures 28 November 2021 Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City battles for possession with Aaron Cresswell of West Ham United during a match at the Etihad during snow
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UK news in pictures 27 November 2021 Residents clear branches from a fallen tree in Birkenhead, north west England as “Storm Arwen” triggered a rare “red weather” warning
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UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 An aerial picture shows a worker using a quad bike and trailer to transport freshly harvested trees at Pimms Christmas Tree farm in Matfield, southeast England
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UK news in pictures 26 November 2021 A shopper browses Christmas trees for sale at Pines and Needles in Dulwich, London
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UK news in pictures 25 November 2021 A murmuration of hundreds of thousands of starlings fly over a field at dusk in Cumbria, close to the Scottish border
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UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London
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UK news in pictures 24 November 2021 Migrants are helped ashore from a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat at a beach in Dungeness, on the south-east coast of England, on November 24, 2021, after being rescued while crossing the English Channel.
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UK news in pictures 23 November 2021 The coffin of Sir David Amess is carried past politicians, including former Prime Ministers Sir John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the requiem mass for the MP at Westminster Cathedral, central London
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UK news in pictures 22 November 2021 The scene in Dragon Rise, Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset where police have launched a murder probe after two people were found dead
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UK news in pictures 21 November 2021 London-based midwife Sarah Muggleton, 27, takes part in a 'March with Midwives' in central London to highlight the crisis in maternity services
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UK news in pictures 20 November 2021 Police officers monitor as climate change activists sit down and block traffic during a protest action in solidarity with activists from the Insulate Britain group who received prison terms for blocking roads, on Lambeth Bridge in central London
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UK news in pictures 19 November 2021 A giant installation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson made from recycled clothing goes on display at Manchester Central, as part of Manchester Art Fair, in a 'wake-up call for the Prime Minister to tackle textile waste'
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UK news in pictures 18 November 2021 The scene at a recycling centre in Stert, near Devizes in Wiltshire after a large blaze was brought under control. The fire broke out on Wednesday night the fire service has said and local residents were advised to keep windows and doors shut due to large amounts of smoke
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UK news in pictures 17 November 2021 The sun rises over South Shields Lighthouse, on the North East coast of England
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UK news in pictures 16 November 2021 ancer Maithili Vijayakumar at the launch of 2021 Diwali celebrations at St Andrew Square in Edinburgh
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UK news in pictures 15 November 2021 Forensic officers work outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, following a car blast, in Liverpool
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UK news in pictures 14 November 2021 Wreaths by the Cenotaph after the Remembrance Sunday service in Whitehall, London
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UK news in pictures 13 November 2021 Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is ending his hunger strike in central London after almost three weeks. Ratcliffe has spent 21 days camped outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London without food. He began his demonstration on 24 October after his wife lost her latest appeal in Iran, saying his family was “caught in a dispute between two states”
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UK news in pictures 12 November 2021 Peter Green protesting outside the Cop26 gates during the official final day of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.
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UK news in pictures 11 November 2021 Seagulls fly around the statue entitled 'Tommy', a first World War soldier by artist Ray Lonsdale at dawn in Seaham, Britain
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UK news in pictures 10 November 2021 Climate activists dressed as characters inspired by the Netflix series “Squid Game” protest as they ask Samsung to go 100% renewable energy, outside the venue for COP26 in Glasgow
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UK news in pictures 9 November 2021 A deer statue silhouetted at Loch Faskally in Pitlochry, Scotland
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UK news in pictures 8 November 2021 Sunrise over St Mary's Lighthouse at Whitley Bay on the North East coast of England
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UK news in pictures 7 November 2021 Activists from Friends of the Earth during a demonstration calling for an end to all new oil and gas projects in the North Sea outside the UK Government's Cop26 hub during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow
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UK news in pictures 6 November 2021 Protesters take part in a rally organised by the Cop26 Coalition in Glasgow demanding global climate justice
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UK news in pictures 5 November 2021 Final touches are made to a life sized Sir David Attenborough cake surrounded by animals as part of a display created by a group of cake artists during Cake International at NEC Birmingham
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UK news in pictures 4 November 2021 A spectacular display of the Northern Lights seen over Derwentwater, near Keswick in the Lake District
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UK news in pictures 3 November 2021 Police and demonstrators at a Extinction Rebellion protest on Buchanan Street, during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow
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UK news in pictures 2 November 2021 A person walks along the Basingstoke canal near to Dogmersfield in Hampshire
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UK news in pictures 1 November 2021 Sir David Attenborough delivers a speech during Cop26 in Glasgow
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UK news in pictures 31 October 2021 Extinction Rebellion activists protest in Edinburgh as the Cop26 conference begins in Glasgow
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“The party is looking for a bit of bloody grip to be exerted and if they see that they might hold off,” she said. “But I think the prime minister has been put on warning by his MPs.”
The PM said he took “personal responsibility” for the “very disappointing” result – the seventh-largest by-election swing in modern history – and said he would take action to “fix” the operation of his administration.
He is facing calls for a clear-out of an under-performing inner circle at Downing Street, with backbench dissatisfaction directed at chief of staff Dan Rosenfield, who was seen by some as lacking the authority to impose discipline on what one former minister described as a “very young and inadequate” No 10 team.
“There is a feeling widely shared in the parliamentary party that the No 10 operation is extremely poor,” the senior MP told The Independent. “He hasn’t got a good chief of staff with real authority, the holder of the post is essentially a civil servant. There’s a feeling that junior staff are getting away with murder, as we see with the reports of parties. A strong chief of staff would never have tolerated that – they’d have been out on their ear.”
Others said Mr Johnson needed to engage more closely with MPs and respond to their concerns.
One former minister said the “appalling” handling of the party reports reflected the complacent view of those around Johnson that his personal popularity made him immune to scandal.
“North Shropshire has shown that the Teflon has been stripped off the prime minister,” the MP told The Independent. “Until now, pretty much every crisis has been met with the idea that the normal rules don’t apply to Boris. That is not an approach that will work any more.”
Another senior MP said that voters in North Shropshire had sent the government the message: “Get your act together.”
It was not too late for Mr Johnson to win disgruntled voters back before the 2024 election, but he must make a public statement that things have changed, said the MP.
“The public will expect an apology at the very least,” the former cabinet minister told The Independent. “I think that is important.. It is a demonstration of humility, which I think the public would expect, given what we have all been through. The insouciant ‘nothing to see here’ line simply won’t wash any more. That humility has to be demonstrated in the next few months.”
One “Red Wall” Conservative MP told The Independent: “He’s lucky we’ve gone into recess so there’s no one in Westminster for three weeks. The mood is bad, but it would be even worse if people got together to talk.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any leadership push quickly. The people who already want Boris out will let him keep finding a bit more rope. It’s bad poll numbers that will rattle a wider group.”
Sir Charles Walker, the former vice chairman of the 1922 Committee, said Mr Johnson had “weeks, months, a year to sort himself out”.
“If we go on making unforced errors over the next three to six months or nine months, it will become a lot more serious,” he told Times Radio. “It’s serious now but it’s not at a critical level yet.”
And the committee’s treasurer Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said Mr Johnson needed to stop the “self-inflicted own goals”.
“I want him to succeed, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt,” he told Sky News.
“But in doing that, as one of his seasoned backbenchers, I am asking him to think carefully how he governs the country and avoid these self-inflicted measures.”
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith called on critics of the PM to pipe down, insisting: “He is our leader, and he will lead us to the next election.”
But Sir Iain told the BBC that Mr Johnson needs to impose “structure and discipline” on his administration and be prepared to “get rid of people who are breaking the rules, so he can move on”.
“He needs to be out front as the great political salesman, not bogged down having to apologise,” said Duncan Smith.
Conservative chair Oliver Dowden insisted that Mr Johnson remains “an electoral asset for the Conservative Party”.
While admitting his party had been given “a kicking”, he said the Tories had recovered before from mid-term by-election thumpings, saying: “It happens time and time again.”
Johnson himself admitted he had failed to stop “a constant litany of stuff about politics and politicians” from dominating the headlines in recent weeks.
“I totally understand people’s frustrations,” said the PM. “I hear what the voters are saying in North Shropshire. And in all humility, I’ve got to accept that that verdict.”
Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan won Thursday’s by-election by 5,925 votes, overturning a 22,949 Conservative majority from 2019 in a ballot triggered by the resignation of Owen Paterson after he was found guilty of sleaze. Had Mr Johnson not attempted to block Paterson’s 30-day suspension from the House of Commons, the punishment would have been completed on the day of the vote.
Ms Morgan celebrated by popping a giant blue balloon in Oswestry town centre in a symbolic representation of the Lib Dems “bursting Boris’s bubble”.
Former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said that “millions of people have woken up this morning feeling a bit of light has broken into the darkness” thanks to the shock result.
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“It turns out that if you are incompetent, it turns out if you tell lies, it turns out that if you take the people for granted, there is a price to pay,” he said.
“Democracy and justice is alive and well in Britain and the people of North Shropshire have spoken for the whole of Britain.”