a secret ballot held in one of the party s committee rooms. the vote has been triggered by a threshold being met of at least 5a mps writing to sir graham brady, who chairs the backbench 1922 committee, saying they no longer have confidence in mrjohnson s leadership. conservative mps began to turn against the prime minister after revelations about parties and gatherings held during covid lockdowns, and the numbers gathered pace after sue gray s report into that partygate scandal. we ll talk to our political correspondent shortly. first, let s hear sir graham brady s announcement this morning. i m not making a statement. i ve sent out a written statement. i m really here to answer any questions you have on the process or procedure. i ll say what was in the written statement, if it s helpful to you, which is simply to say that the threshold of 15% of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the prime minister has been passed. therefore, a vote of confidence will take place
the party will have confidence in the leadership or not have confidence in the leadership. that s the question that will be before my colleagues today for another year. yellow if he survives, can you confirm yellow if he survives, can you confirm he yellow if he survives, can you confirm he is yellow if he survives, can you confirm he is safe yellow if he survives, can you confirm he is safe for- yellow if he survives, can you confirm he is safe for anotheri yellow if he survives, can you - confirm he is safe for another year? technically it s possible for rules to be changed, but the rule at present is that there would be a year of a period of grace. that was sir graham brady making that announcement in the last hour. let s look again in detail at how conservative mps initiated this leadership challenge. at least 5a of the 359 conservative mps in the commons, that s15%, have now written letters of no confidence to sir graham brady, the chairman of the party s 1922 committee, a
chancellor, rishi sunak. our political editor chris mason gave his assessment of the development. this is happening in turbo speed, not only has the threshold been met, 15% of conservative mps writing to that senior backbencher, sir graham brady, saying they should be a vote of confidence in borisjohnson, but a decision taken between sir graham brady and downing street that they should get on with it, and the prime minister is keen to get on with it, to try to get it out of the way. there is confidence in downing street, in fact across the party, including among sceptics, that he is likely to win the vote, but the bottom line is that a vote of confidence in a political leader is never a good thing, because even if they win arithmetically very comfortably, the act of it happening is damaging, and there will be a number tonight where we know how many conservative mps would rather
on bbc breakfast, we have the health secretary, sajid javid, saying he thought a vote was likely. and then before eight o clock, a former minister, jesse norman, released a pretty devastating letter to the prime minister, jesse norman is a conservative mp for hereford and south herefordshire, and in the letter he said that borisjohnson had presided over a casual culture of lawbreaking. he said that he did not support mrjohnson any more. at 8:15am uk time, the man in charge of this contest, a man called sir graham brady, conservative mp, announced live on bbc breakfast the threshold for a no confidence vote in the prime minister had been reached, and he was asked if some of the letters had effectively been postdated, conservative mps had sent out letters or e mails to him perhaps before the recess, perhaps before the jubilee perhaps before the recess, perhaps before thejubilee weekend, but had to s died on all this morning s