The loudest sound at Westminster today has been the silence of most Tory MPs. A few such as Tobias Ellwood have demanded that Boris Johnson should go. Others have defended the PM publicly. But most Tory MPs have chosen to say nothing. Indeed, because only 13 Tory MPs wanted to contribute to the statement the PM made about the Sue Gray report, the chair had to call opposition MP after opposition MP, rather than going from one side of the House to the other as he normally does.
What does this silence of the majority of Tory MPs mean? It tells us that while backbenchers might not be prepared to move against Johnson, they don’t want to actively defend what happened either. They just want this whole story to go away.
The bad news for them is that today is not yet the end of things; there is still a privileges committee investigation to come.
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