Boris Johnson has gags over Partygate letters as he bury the hatchet with rebel Tory MPs plotting to oust him
- The Prime Minister tried to restore ties with the Tories with a sumptuous dinner
- The event at a central London hotel brought together several former rebels
- This is the Prime Minister’s latest attempt to put the Partygate scandal behind his government
The Prime Minister buried the hatchet with the rebellious Tories joking about their plots against him.
He told a team dinner on Tuesday night that his detractors were “some of the greatest epistolary letter writers since St Paul”.
Boris Johnson received a standing ovation during the rally at a central London hotel in the presence of critics including former chief whip Mark Harper.
Boris Johnson received a standing ovation during the rally at a central London hotel in the presence of critics including former chief whip Mark Harper and allies like Priti Patel (pictured arriving)
A series of disgruntled MPs sent letters of no confidence to the Prime Minister at the height of the Partygate scandal in January.
Noting that some critics had removed their letters since war broke out in Ukraine, he joked that they were “elastic – they go in and you can remove them”.
He added: “One of the reasons Putin is deceived and isolated is because he has no cabinet of equals, no 1922 committee and no one to write 54 letters to Sir Graham Brady.”
The PM admitted he was currently ‘more popular in some parts of Kyiv than in some parts of Kensington’, but vowed he would ‘turn things around’.
In a sign of growing confidence in No 10 over Mr Johnson’s position, high-profile critics including Mr Harper sat at his table.
Backbench MPs Aaron Bell and Anthony Mangnall, who both sent letters to Sir Graham, were spotted at the event, with the latter even joining in a standing ovation for the Prime Minister.
An MP later noted that the cozy atmosphere at the dinner would have been “unthinkable” a month earlier.
Mr Johnson also poked fun at Sir Keir Starmer’s anxieties over trans issues by opening his speech with the greeting: “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, or as Keir Starmer would say, people who are given a female or male at birth..” MPs also sang happy birthday to Home Secretary Priti Patel, who turned 50 on Tuesday.
