No-confidence vote in Boris Johnson would be delayed until after ‘partygate’ report, Tories say

One Tory says PM’s explanation impossible to defend - ‘like going to a brothel and claiming you didn’t realise women are selling themselves for sex’

Any no-confidence vote to topple Boris Johnson will be delayed until after Sue Gray’s report into the ‘partygate’ scandal, The Independent has been told.

More letters have been submitted by Tory MPs demanding the vote – which was held within 24 hours when the threshold was reached to trigger the contest against Theresa May, in 2018.

But senior Conservatives say Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, will not arrange the vote until after the Gray report, one saying that would make “no sense”.

Another suggested Sir Graham – a critic of Mr Johnson – would also want to delay until after the verdict has been delivered, to increase the chances of him losing and being forced out.

“It would not make any sense to hold the vote until after Sue Gray has reported,” said one Tory MP close to discussions about the timing of any vote.

“There is nothing in the rules to say that a confidence vote must be held immediately after the threshold for signatures is reached.

“After the inquiry, some MPs may wish to withdraw their letters – as well as others who might submit them, depending on what her report says about the prime minister.”

One former minister said: “Graham will want to delay the vote, because he wants to be a minister – and he knows that won’t happen while Boris Johnson is prime minister.”

Only Sir Graham knows whether the number of letters demanding a no-confidence vote is close to the tally of 54 – 15 per cent of the parliamentary party – required for it to happen.

The rebels’ momentum has slowed with the shock defection of Christian Wakeford to Labour, a display of disloyalty which has provoked waverers to “rally round”.

Most Conservative MPs have said they want to wait for Ms Gray’s report – which Mr Johnson told MPs would not be completed until “next week”.

The senior civil servant had been expected to finish her work before the end of this week – but her task has grown with further allegations about lockdown-busting events.

Some Tories report that anger at Mr Johnson and the parties is not on the scale of the backlash against the revelation of Dominic Cummings’ lockdown-busting drive around County Durham, last year.

But others say it is impossible to defend the prime minister’s explanation that he attended the party on 20 May, 2020 – but did not realise a party was taking place.

“It is like walking into Buchenwald and not realising it is a concentration camp, but thinking it is a prison,” one Tory MP said.

“It is like going to a brothel and claiming you didn’t realise that the women there are selling themselves for sex.”

Another former Johnson ally said a no-confidence vote would be fatal for him eventually – even if he survived the vote itself.

“It will be just a matter of time before he goes. That is the lesson of what happened to Theresa May, to John Major and to Margaret Thatcher,” the MP said.