Boris Johnson has survived as prime minister, and must act fast to overhaul the Northern Ireland Protocol

Boris Johnson is badly wounded by yesterday’s no confidence vote in his leadership of the Conservative Party.

While Mr Johnson won the vote among Tory MPs decisively, by an almost 60-40 margin, it was actually quite a poor performance.

When Margaret Thatcher could only command the backing of a similar percentage of Conservative MPs in the party’s leadership contest of 1990, she was gone within days as Tory leader and thus as prime minister.

This is a different situation in that Mr Johnson will not have to face such a leadership race for at least a year. Nonetheless, this charming but somewhat arrogant man is badly wounded.

One route to possible survival for Mr Johnson is to begin to woo influencers and voters from a wide range of background and views. This however will lead the PM further down a populist road of, for example, easy expenditure pledges, to keep various groups and factions happy, while discarding the fiscal discipline for which the Conservatives were once respected.

But if he does that, Mr Johnson will have shown himself not to be a leader, but rather someone who responds to profound political challenges by pursuing a course of flagrant self-interest.

Instead, the prime minister should embark on the opposite path, and face down critics of important but potentially unpopular decisions.

Above all this means acting promptly to follow through on his pledge to defend the Union by introducing unilateral action to overhaul the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The PM and his supporters say that he agreed to the Irish Sea border because Westminster deadlock in 2019 left him with no other option.

That being so he should use the remainder of his time with a parliamentary majority to rectify the constitutional harm to the UK that he says he was forced to inflict.

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