Labour Pledges To Remove Boris Johnson From No 10 If Tories Do Not “Get Their Act Together”
3 min read
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has said the party will seek to remove Boris Johnson from Downing Street next week, claiming it is “unacceptable” for the Prime Minister to stay in post.
Johnson announced on Thursday that he would step down as Prime Minister once a new leader of the Conservative Party is elected.
But there have been calls for him to depart sooner, with former PM Sir John Major among those calling for Johnson to leave Number 10 immediately.
Asked if Labour was planning to bring forward a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister in the Commons, Rayner said: “We will if the Conservatives don’t get their act together and get rid of Boris Johnson.
“He’s a proven liar who’s engulfed in sleaze and we can’t have another couple of months of this,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“So they do have to get rid of him, and if they don’t, we will call a no confidence vote because it’s pretty clear – he hasn’t got the confidence of the house or the British public.
Rayner also told BBC Breakfast, “The fact he is trying to cling on for a few months is completely unacceptable”.
“Johnson admitted that he had met the former KGB spy, Alexander Lebedev, in secret, without officials, that’s a national security risk, he completely disregarded the rules, and that’s why he can’t carry on”.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey also said his party would support the Labour motion, which would likely be presented to the House of Commons early next week.
A parliamentary motion would allow MPs of all parties to vote on whether the PM should go. The motion is not binding.
The Lib Dems had previously called for a Commons no confidence vote last month, shortly after the after the PM survived a Tory party no confidence vote by 211 to 148 votes, with 41 per cent of his MPs voting against him.
On Thursday, Sir John Major wrote to 1922 committee chair Sir Graham Brady calling for Johnson to resign, leaving Dominic Raab in charge as a “caretaker PM”.
A 1922 source suggested it would be for the 1922's new executive – set to be elected on Monday – to respond to Major's proposals. They said that at present, the committee simply did not have the powers to enact them.
Responding to such suggestions, newly-appointed education secretary James Cleverly told Sky News: “It’s right that he has stood down and it’s right that he has put a team in place to continue governing whilst the selection procedure flows for his successor.”
But he added that the party should ensure a new leader was in place “pretty quickly, pretty promptly”.
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