Can Boris win round his rebel MPs?

The beginning of the end for Theresa May was when she tried to see if she could pass her Brexit deal with Labour votes. So Boris Johnson will have shifted uncomfortably in his seat on Tuesday night when it became clear that the House of Commons had approved his tier system only because the opposition had abstained. If they had opposed the measure then it would have failed, such was the size of the Conservative revolt — 53 Tories voted against it, the biggest rebellion of his premiership by far.

The worry for the Prime Minister is that this is not the last time he will need to rely on Keir Starmer’s passivity to get his regulations through. The next time parliament votes on these restrictions at the end of January, it is almost certain that, once again, many Tories will refuse to back the measures if they continue to be so strict or to treat counties as a single unit. West Kent MPs are furious that the whole county — the sixth most populous in England — is in Tier 3 because of high infection rates in the Medway towns, despite very low infection rates in their own constituencies. The problem for the government is that if the tier system were operated on a sub-county level this would not only make the rules more confusing but would also risk the accusation that the government was indulging in political favouritism by freeing leafy places from restrictions and keeping urban areas locked up.

The government has to hope that the tiers vote at the end of January is the last one. By March, the vaccine rollout should have allowed a significant easing of restrictions, with a return to ‘normal’ by April. Johnson’s worry is that the Tory rebellions against his Covid measures keep getting bigger.