It is “almost impossible” for Boris Johnson to cling on as prime minister over the partygate scandal, former leadership rival Rory Stewart has claimed.
Stewart, who ran against Johnson for the Conservative leadership in 2019, said the drip of allegations of parties in Downing Street had “fatally wounded” Johnson, who now gave the appearance of somebody who has “lost the confidence to lead”.
The former international development secretary did not hold back his criticism of Johnson, whom he said was “manifestly unsuited” to be prime minister.
“We should all have expected this,” he told Sky News.
“He’s been a very famous public figure for 30 years. The British public has spent 30 years focusing on the fact that he lies, that he’s disorganised, that he betrays almost every personal commitment that he has.
“He was manifestly unsuited to be prime minister from the beginning, and it’s very, very disturbing that a great country like Britain should have chosen somebody so unsuitable for the role.”
Johnson’s leadership is under threat from Tory MPs who have become disillusioned with his response to party allegations in Number 10 and want him to resign.
In a fresh development, rebel MPs have accused Conservative whips of threatening to withdraw funding from their constituencies in order to stifle any rebellion — claims that have been denied by Number 10.
William Wragg, the chairman of the Commons public administration committee, yesterday said he had been told allies of the prime minister had threatened to “embarrass” rebels with “stories in the press” and urged his colleagues to go to the police.
Stewart, the former MP for Penrith and the Border, said the Whip system resembled an “elective dictatorship”.
Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South who defected to Labour shortly before prime minister’s questions, has alleged that Tory whips threatened to block a new school in his constituency.
Johnson yesterday said he had “seen no evidence, heard no evidence to support any of those allegations” .
Asked about Wakeford’s claims, Stewart said such threats were “completely inappropriate — the decisions made by ministers must be based on genuine need”.
“It is grotesque to suggest that the government will deprive a constituency of a secondary school on the basis of the way an MP is voting in the Chamber.”
The claims against No.10 could galvanise the rebels whose momentum against Johnson appeared to have been dampened by Wakeford’s defection to the opposition.
The Times reported that Tory MPs who want to remove Johnson are considering publishing secretly recorded conversations and text messages with the chief whip in an escalation of tensions.
Stewart said it was “ironic” that it was parties in Downing Street that was likely to be the “nail in the coffin” for Johnson’s leadership rather than “the record of bad government over the last year and a half” which has seen more than 150,000 people die during the pandemic.
Giving his verdict on the state of politics, Stewart said he believed the public knew there was something “deeply wrong” with the British political system.
“And that’s not just about Boris Johnson,” he said.
“That’s about all these political games and in the end it comes down to the fact that politics is seen too much as a game and not enough as a real vocation, and not enough as being about running the country.”