Angela Rayner: what has the deputy Labour party leader said about the vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson?

Greater Manchester MP Angela Rayner has attacked the Conservative party after it held a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday.

Ms Rayner, who is MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, and deputy leader of the Labour Party, took to several news channels to express her views on the vote and how she thinks the Prime Minister will do in the next election.

Here’s what happened with the confidence vote last night, and what Angela Rayner has said in the hours that followed.

What happened with the vote?

A vote of confidence in Boris Johnson’s role as Prime Minister was confirmed yesterday morning (6 June) and took place between 6pm and 8pm the same day.

The vote saw Conservative MPs vote on their leader, and the MPs were asked to say if they had confidence in their leader.

211 MPs voted to say that they did have confidence, while 148 voted that they no longer had confidence in Boris Johnson as party leader.

The vote is being viewed as a success by supporters of Mr Johnson, who are now calling on the nation to draw a line under the event and come together to tackle issues such as the cost of living crisis.

However, others in the House of Commons, on both sides of the divide, feel that the PM can no longer continue after seeing over 40% of his own MPs say they no longer have confidence in him.

What has Angela Rayner said?

Ms Rayner called on the Prime Minister to resign from his position following the vote, and was keen to stress that she believed it wasn’t the success which many of his supporters suggested it was.

Talking to Sky News, Angela Rayner said: “I don’t think it is a good day. I think he is mortally wounded now and I think he has only got an 80-odd majority within Parliament and therefore he is pretty clear 70-odd % of his backbenchers didn’t back him so I think he should have done the right thing by now and resigned already, but this Prime Minister doesn’t really consider himself to follow rules.”

She added: “Number 10 was the most heavily fined house in the whole of the United Kingdom when it came to the Covid rules, cleaners were having to clean up vomit and wine off the walls, it wasn’t a one-off, this was serial partying going on in Number 10 when people couldn’t see their loved ones...

“I think every day that Boris Johnson is Prime Minister is damaging the standards in public life and it damages us all.”

Ms Rayner went on to say that she believed the MP would get ‘hammered’ in a general election.

Was Boris Johnson happy with the vote?

The Prime Minister spoke to the media at Downing Street following the result of the vote, and he was defiant in his attitude.

Mr Johnson said: “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 also ruled out suggestions to call a snap election, instead stating he was firmly focused on the job in hand.