MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

PM Johnson wins vote of confidence but shadowy future still ahead

“I do not believe our voters will lightly forgive us...” Johnson wrote to his fellow Tory MPs

Britain's Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson survived a vote of confidence Monday by 211 to 148 but faces a new political scenario after a rebellion from within Tory ranks comparable in size to the one suffered by Theresa May.

 Johnson needed a simple majority of 180 votes or more to stay in office but who knows what the future might bring after only 59% of Conservative MPs backed him while 41% did not? In any case, the PM is now immune from another leadership challenge for 12 months, as per Conservative Party rules.

The rebellion is bigger than the one in January 2019 against then-Prime Minister Theresa May.

It has been rumored that up to five members of the cabinet might have cast a negative vote. In this scenario and if history is to repeat itself to a certain extent, Johnson could still be ousted -like May- or just take the Tories down to defeat at the next general election -like Sir John Major-.

May had won a confidence vote in December 2018, where she secured the support of 200 MPs to 117 - a majority of 83, that represented the backing of 63% of her parliamentary party. But five months later she resigned, after repeatedly failing to pass her Brexit deal in the Commons.

“I do not believe our voters will lightly forgive us if - just when they need us most to be focusing on them - we appear once again to be focusing on Westminster politics,” Johnson wrote to MPs ahead of Monday's vote.

Despite his victory Monday, there is wide consensus in London that Johnson has fallen from grace after the Partygate scandals, and three and a half years after the Conservatives forced their last vote of no confidence on their leader, some signs are heralding a similar path lies ahead. Only back then it was Johnson on the winning side rising to power.

But Partygate (parties by Government officials and civil servants at Government facilities while the rest of Britons were locked down at their homes as COVID-19 made its appearance) revealed a chaotic self-entitled administration (“one rule for us and another for the people”).