Scottish Conservative leader calls for Boris Johnson to quit

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has called for Boris Johnson to resign after the prime minister admitted attending a Downing Street party during lockdown.

Mr Johnson apologised about the May 2020 gathering while claiming that it was "technically within the rules".

He said he "believed implicitly that this was a work event" at the time.

But Mr Ross - who is an MP as well as an MSP - said the prime minister's position was "no longer tenable".

His views were later dismissed by Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg who told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "Douglas Ross has always been quite a lightweight figure."

The Scottish Tory leader said he had a "difficult conversation" with Mr Johnson on Wednesday afternoon, and that he would write to the 1922 Committee to register his lack of confidence in his leadership.

He said: "He is the prime minister, it is his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions."

Mr Johnson faced calls to quit from opposition parties during prime minister's questions, after admitting for the first time that he attended the event.

This came two days after an email was leaked to ITV News in which 100 staff were invited to a "bring your own booze" event in the Downing Street garden, at a time when government guidance was to not meet up with more than one person from another household.

Mr Johnson said he was present for 25 minutes, adding: "With hindsight I should have sent everyone back inside.

"I should have found some other way to thank them, and I should have recognised that - even if it could have been said technically to fall within the guidance - there would be millions and millions of people who simply would not see it that way."

Mr Ross said he believed Mr Johnson was "genuine" in his apology, but that "it was wrong to attend the event".

He added: "Crucially for me he said that in hindsight if he had his time again he would have done things differently

"To me that is an acceptance from the prime minister that he did wrong, and therefore to be consistent with what I've said before I don't believe his position as prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party is tenable and he does need to resign."

The majority of Scottish Conservative MSPs quickly backed Mr Ross, with Murdo Fraser saying that the prime minister had "lost public trust, and in the interests of the country and the Conservative Party he should step down".

Douglas Ross once endorsed Boris Johnson for the top job in UK politics, but he later resigned from government over the prime minister's failure to dismiss Dominic Cummings for his travels during lockdown.

Since then, Mr Ross - who is also a football referee - has occasionally raised the political equivalent of a yellow card to the PM.

Now he's showing him a red, describing his position as "untenable" for attending a bring-your-own-booze event in the Downing Street garden.

In that call, he has overwhelming backing from his MSP group - as he becomes the first Scottish Tory leader to effectively front a campaign to oust his UK party leader.

He must now have everything crossed that Boris Johnson is actually forced from office and he's not stuck with a leader he has so publicly rejected.

Mr Ross's predecessor as Tory leader, Jackson Carlaw, said Mr Johnson had "lost the confidence of the country", while another former leader, Baroness Ruth Davidson, said Mr Ross had made "the right call".

But some Tory MPs rallied behind the prime minister, with Sir Christopher Chope saying he had "never heard such an abject apology" in his time in parliament, which he believed it was "genuinely sincere".

The Scottish Secretary Alister Jack also told the BBC he was "100% supportive" of the prime minister.

The SNP has been calling for Mr Johnson's resignation for some time, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying on Wednesday that "the office of prime minister would be greatly enhanced by Boris Johnson's departure from it".

And Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Johnson should "do the decent thing and resign" after "months of deceit and deception" about parties during lockdown.

Mr Johnson - who has urged opponents to wait for the conclusions of an internal review - toured the Commons tea rooms after prime ministers questions in an attempt to shore up support among his backbenchers.

If 54 MPs send letters to the 1922 committee - an influential group of backbench Tories - it would trigger a formal challenge to his leadership of the party.

So far Mr Ross and Sir Roger Gale are the only MPs who have confirmed they will do so, although the process is theoretically confidential.

Mr Ross said this was a "course of action open to MPs", but said he did not speak on behalf of all Conservatives.

He added: "I explained to the PM today that I felt he should stand down because of this, but that is ultimately his decision."