Boris Johnson has taken aim at calls to resign from the ranks of his majority, as he struggles to stay at the helm of the British government after being responsible for his attendance at a Downing Street party in full confinement in 2020.
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Already overshadowed by a series of other scandals, the 57-year-old Conservative leader apologized to Parliament on Wednesday for attending a party on May 20, 2020 in the gardens of his official residence, saying he then thought he was about to have a business meeting. .
The event, to which his secretary sent an invitation to attend to about 100 people with a proposal to bring their bottles, took place during a trying time for the British. In the midst of the first wave of Covid-19, only two people were allowed out and many Britons were unable to say goodbye to their dying loved ones.
Immediately, opposition parties, led by the Labor Party who accused him of lying, demanded his resignation, while members of his government overwhelmingly supported him, on Twitter or in the media.
However, the topic is not unanimous among the Conservatives, who until recently praised Boris Johnson’s ability to seduce, with his promise of Brexit, the working classes of northern England, previously taken over by Labour.
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The timid support given to him by Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, who is seen as a potential prime ministerial candidate, has been widely commented on.
Traveling to Devon (south-west England) as the Prime Minister faced the wrath of MPs, Mr Sunak took eight hours to line up behind him, via a tweet insisting his commitment to UK employment.
“The Prime Minister has bestowed an apology and I support his request for patience,” he said calmly, awaiting the results of an internal investigation led by senior official Sue Gray.
Expected at best next week, the conclusions of this internal investigation are now shaping up to be decisive for the fate of Boris Johnson.
London police, who have ridiculed their line of not investigating a retroactive breach of anti-white rules, said they would reconsider their expectations if an internal investigation uncovered any potential criminal offences.
A sign of the cracks breaking the party’s unity in power, the revolution also rose up between Scottish Conservatives, who considered his position unacceptable, and Conservative MPs in Westminster.
Like Roger Gill, who considers Boris Johnson “dead alive”, some elected officials have said publicly that they support a vote of no-confidence within the Conservative Party in order to push him toward Brexit.
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“The position of Prime Minister is untenable and I believe we should not let the conclusions of a civil servant determine his future,” agreed another member, William Wragg, vice-chairman of the powerful 1922 Committee, and the official. Parliament organizing training. “It is up to the Conservative Party, if not the prime minister himself, to make that decision,” he told the BBC.
The scandal comes on top of what was revealed by other parties in the circles of power during the closures in the past two years, as well as accusations of corruption and nepotism.
Boris Johnson, who took power victoriously in July 2019, has since seen his long-standing popularity plummet in the polls. One, which YouGov gave to The Times before his apology, gave Labor a huge lead by ten points, the first in nearly a decade.
On Thursday, the head of government escaped from the cameras and questions from the media: the case of the Covid connection, he canceled a scheduled visit to the vaccination center.