Boris Johnson’s tense showdown with Tory MPs

It’s been a long and bruising week for Boris Johnson. The Tory sleaze row has dragged on – and even the Prime Minister’s attempt to bring the matter to a close by supporting a crackdown on outside jobs has run into problems. After a tetchy appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions and then the Liaison Committee, Johnson addressed his party at the 1922 committee on Wednesday night.

This session took place while the debate on MP standards was ongoing in the Commons chamber – a reminder of the ongoing fallout from the Prime Minister’s botched attempt to spare Owen Paterson a 30-day suspension for a breach of lobbying rules. This was Johnson’s first time addressing the whole parliamentary party since the row began, which has seen Labour edge ahead of the Tories in a number of polls.

In advance of the session, Tory MPs had been telling the whips’ office that the Prime Minister owed the party an apology. In the end, they got something resembling one. He told MPs: ‘On a clear day I crashed the car into a ditch. I will get the car out of the ditch.’ A lot of MPs are annoyed it took this long for Johnson to address them, and the session was a tense one. Two MPs present described the mood as ‘terrible’ with another suggesting the MP was ‘too jokey’ and misread the room.

The questions from MPs suggested there is cause for concern – with members of the new intake asking questions in which they praised members of the standards committee (the same committee whose ruling Johnson had previously tried to overturn) and pressed the PM on the need to move quicker when it came to tackling the Channel crossings. As for Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister appeared tired with his voice breaking at various points.

As I say in the magazine this week, this is just one in a series of events by which Downing Street hopes to rebuild party morale. On Tuesday night, the 2019 intake were invited to a drinks reception with the Prime Minister which one figure involved described as a plot to ‘shower them with love’. Johnson urged them to ‘stick with us and stick with it’, while mocking Starmer as ‘the honourable member for Holborn, St Pancras and Mishcon de Reya’, in a reference to claims (denied by Starmer) that Jeremy Corbyn stopped him taking a second job with the law firm.

There are plans for a bigger charm offensive in the new year. All Tory MPs have been invited to a two-day residential parliamentary away session in the Midlands, the first since David Cameron was premier. While lukewarm white wine and the Prime Minister’s love-bombs could boost morale (even if last night’s session failed to), the bigger problem for Johnson is that his authority has taken a big hit – and MPs are now openly doubting his judgment. That will be harder to build back.