Boris Johnson hails ‘very good result’ as 41% of Tory MPs vote against him

Tory MPs voted by 211 to 148 in support of the Prime Minister with the scale of the revolt against his leadership leaving him wounded.

When Theresa May faced a confidence vote in 2018 she secured the support of 63% of her MPs – but was still forced out within six months.

Mr Johnson saw 41% of his MPs vote against him, a worse result than Mrs May.

However Mr Johnson told broadcasters: “I think this is a very good result for politics and for the country.”

He added it was “a convincing result, a decisive result, and what it means is that as a Government we can move on and focus on the stuff that I think really matters to people”.

Asked how it compared to past confidence votes in Conservative prime ministers, he added: “I have got a far bigger mandate from my own parliamentary colleagues than I had in 2019.”

Boris Johnson insisted it was an “extremely good” result despite a worse performance than Theresa May in the confidence vote.

“I think it’s an extremely good, positive, conclusive, decisive result which enables us to move on, to unite and to focus on delivery and that is exactly what we are going to do,” he told reporters in Downing Street.

He ruled out a snap election in order to gain a new mandate from the public, insisting he was focused on the public’s priorities.

The Prime Minister said: “I see no point in focusing on anything else and I’m certainly not interested in snap elections. What I’m interested in is delivering right now for the people of this country.”