Inside Politics: It’s over, Boris

Are you out of work at the minute or looking to change jobs? You could be in luck. There are dozens of vacancies at the UK government. No skills or abilities required – just blind loyalty. The writing is on the wall for Boris Johnson, who continues to cling on despite an avalanche of ministerial resignations.

Commons action gets underway with DCMS questions at 9.30am. This is followed by attorney general questions to Suella Braverman. After that comes any urgent questions and ministerial statements. Later, Commons leader Mark Spencer has the weekly business statement. The main business will be debates on economic crime law enforcement resourcing and alcohol duty. Labour MP Wayne David has an adjournment debate on dangerous dogs.

Another day of drama at Westminster – this one quite literally unprecedented – ended last night with Boris Johnson digging in and refusing to resign despite an avalanche of ministerial resignations and more cabinet ministers exiting government.

Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, was sacked and branded a “snake” by No 10 while Simon Hart, the Welsh secretary, decided enough was enough and walked out. Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, also quit shortly before 7am this morning. Hart was among a “delegation” (including the new chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi!) of Johnson loyalists lying in wait for the PM at Downing Street to tell him that his time was up, following his appearance at a brutal liaison committee where he took a battering from MPs.

The delegation also included ultra-loyalist Priti Patel, the home secretary, who has stood by Johnson through thick and thin. The fact that Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, is one of a few cabinet ministers continuing to back the Big Dog perhaps tells you all you need to know about the current state of Downing Street.

As of late last night, we count that some 46 Tory MPs have now quit the government since Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, and Sajid Javid, the health secretary – who in a statement to the Commons yesterday issued a rallying cry to colleagues for them to follow him – started the firing gun on Tuesday. In the normal cut and thrust of politics, resignations by junior ministers and aides themselves don’t mean a great deal and don’t usually make big headlines.

But the sheer scale and weight of resignations yesterday, said to be the highest number in modern history, means that the government has imploded, with departments now likely to grind to a standstill (what MPs will want to enter government amid this sorry saga?) This is now a crisis that goes well beyond Johnson and the Conservative Party and is a problem for the entire country.

Friends of Johnson said in February that his opponents would need a tank division to get him out of No 10. It now appears that they were not joking. An ally tells today’s Sun that “if the party wants to overthrow the elected will of the people, they have to dip their hands in blood”. Johnson continues to insist that he has a personal mandate to govern and will therefore cling on to the bitter end. But that argument is not standing up to the scrutiny of constitutional experts, who say that in the UK we don’t have a presidential system. Voters vote for individual MPs, they say, therefore the mandate is for the Conservative Party – not the PM.

The tidal wave of resignations – which at some points yesterday came in by the minute – does not include a number of Tory MPs who submitted no confidence letters to the 1922 Committee of influential Tory backbenchers, which met last night but stepped back from immediately changing the rules on leadership contests, perhaps somewhat naively thinking Johnson would go of his own accord.

Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke said elections to the 1922 executive had been opened and will close at midday Monday, before a vote takes place between 2pm and 4pm. The result will be announced on Monday evening, after which point MPs could then move to start the process of removing Johnson. Because of the large number of ministerial resignations – and a broader feeling across the Tory party that Johnson’s time is up – it looks almost certain that he will lose a second confidence vote.

The writing is on the wall for the boy who wanted to be World King. But it looks as though he is determined to burn down the palace on the way out.

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Campaigners are calling on the government to make further amendments to the Online Safety Bill, warning that in its current form the proposed internet safety laws are “on the verge of being unworkable”.

In a letter sent to culture secretary Nadine Dorries and tech minister Chris Philp, the group of 16 organisations say the Bill is currently focused on the wrong areas of regulation.

They argue that, at the moment, it “focuses too heavily on trying to regulate what individual people can say online, rather than getting to the heart of the problem and addressing tech companies’ systems and algorithms that promote and amplify harmful content”.

“As a result, it risks being the worst of both worlds: failing to keep us safe, while also threatening free speech,” the letter says.It has been signed by the heads of a range of campaign groups, including Hope Not Hate, Fair Vote UK and the 5Rights Foundation.

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“Enough is enough…I do fear that the reset button can only work so many times. There’s only so many times you can turn that machine on and off before you realise that something is fundamentally wrong.”

Javid statement to the Commons.

“Boris Johnson claims that he is staying on for the good of the country and that it’s not about his own self-interest. He’s ‘100 per cent’ determined to fight a second confidence vote. It means we’ll see Cabinet resignations tonight.”

Times politics editor Steven Swinford on PM’s refusal to leave No 10