Another Tory backbencher has submitted a letter of no-confidence in Boris Johnson, accusing the prime minister of “mistruths” and calling for his resignation.
Anthony Mangnall, the MP for Totnes and South Devon, said he had handed in a letter to the chair of the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs.
“At this time I can no longer support the PM,” Mangnall tweeted on Wednesday. “His actions and mistruths are overshadowing the extraordinary work of so many excellent ministers and colleagues.”
He added: “I have submitted a letter of no confidence”, and also added: “Standards in public life matter.
‘Just horrible’
Mangnall is the second Tory MP to call for Johnson’s head on Wednesday, after former minister Tobias Ellwood announced that he would also be submitting a letter to 1922 chair Sir Graham Brady.
Although a number of Tory MPs have suggested they will wait until Scotland Yard has finished its probe into the Partygate scandal, Ellwood said it was “just horrible” that parliamentarians were being forced to defend the affair in public.
A dozen Conservatives have publicly revealed that they have submitted no-confidence letters, with 54 required to trigger a vote on Johnson’s leadership.
It follows Peter Aldous, Tory MP for Suffolk, saying on Tuesday that after “a great deal of soul-searching” he had decided that “the prime minister should resign”.
Nicola Sturgeon on Wednesday likened Johnson to Donald Trump and accused him of spreading “fake news” over comments made about Sir Keir Starmer’s involvement in investigating Jimmy Savile.
Giving a statement on the update to MPs earlier this week, Boris Johnson lashed out at the Labour leader’s record when he was director of public prosecutions.
‘Fake news’
Johnson said Sir Keir “used his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”.
Sir Keir had said in a review in 2013 that Savile could have been charged for his crimes in 2009, two years before his death, had police taken victims more seriously, and he apologised for “the shortcomings in the part played by the Crown Prosecution Service in these cases”.
In 2020, fact-checking charity Full Fact found the Labour leader was the head of the Crown Prosecution Service in 2009 when a decision was made not to bring charges against Savile, who was later revealed to be a rampant paedophile and is believed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.
Full Fact said: “The allegations against Savile were dealt with by local police and a reviewing lawyer for the CPS.
“A later investigation criticised the actions of both the CPS and the police in their handling of the situation.
“It did not suggest that Starmer was personally involved in the decisions made.”
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