PM Boris Johnson Wins No Confidence Vote

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has won a no confidence vote against him within the Conservative Party after several Tory MPs submitted letters of no confidence.After a 2 hour window of voting time for Conservative MPs, the result was announced at 21.00 BST by Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers.359 ballots were cast in total.

211 MPs voted for having confidence in Johnson as leader and PM. 148 MPs voted against Johnson. That means more than 40% of Tory MPs voted against Johnson.Johnson will remain in his role as Prime Minister and a leadership contest will not take place. If Johnson had lost the vote by a majority, Johnson would have resigned and a leadership contest would have been triggered.The Prime Minister retained the support of most of his colleagues after promising them tax cuts in a speech on the economy next week.

Johnson addressed the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories and made a last-minute plea to support him ahead of the no confidence vote by Tory MPs. He pledged to lead the party into another election and said that his removal would be the one route to a Labour election victory. Johnson said: "The only way we can let that happen is if we were so foolish as to descend into some pointless, fratricidal debate about the future of the party, when frankly there is no alternative vision that I am hearing. Let us refuse to dance to the tune of the media, let us refuse to gratify our opponents by turning in on ourselves.

"He continued: "Tonight we have the chance to end the media-driven focus on the leadership of the Conservative party. If you give me your support tonight, we have the chance to stop talking about ourselves and start talking exclusively about what we are doing for the people of this country. Instead of getting into some hellish, Groundhog Day debate about the merits of belonging to the single market, relitigating questions that we settled two and a half years ago, we can get on, we can deliver and we can unite."In April, he said he was sure that he would still be Prime Minister in six months.