British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a “no-confidence” vote on Monday evening and will remain in office after lawmakers from his Conservative political party voted in favor of his leadership by a margin of 211 to 148.
The vote could have forced his resignation after the prime minister became involved in a series of scandals.
The prime minister needed a simple majority of the 359 Conservative members of Parliament to vote in his favor. He won that with 211 supporting him and 148 voting against him.
The no-confidence vote comes after months of pressure building on Johnson’s leadership, and this is the first vote of its kind since Johnson became prime minister in 2019.
A vote of no confidence in the Conservative Party is triggered if the party’s leaders receive letters of request from at least 15% of sitting Conservative members of Parliament.
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The prime minister was fined by the Metropolitan Police in April for breaking the law. He and his colleagues held and attended parties during the height of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, becoming the first sitting prime minister in British history to receive a sanction for breaking the law.
It was revealed that government officials were having wine and cheese in Johnson’s official residence at Number 10 Downing Street, it was all caught in photographs while members of the public were prevented from visiting dying relatives under COVID-19 restrictions they had devised sparked mass outrage.
The report included a photo of the prime minister making a toast at a gathering held in No. 10 to mark the departure of one of his special advisers, at a time when the nation was under a strict lockdown.
Johnson has apologized but his popularity has dropped in recent months, he has since faced calls to resign from opposition lawmakers and also members of his own party.
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is not directly elected to serve in the role, but appointed by the political party that wins the majority of seats in Parliament. If Johnson had lost the vote on Monday, the Conservative Party, which holds the majority, would have chosen a new leader to automatically take over as prime minister.
