Two South Scotland Conservative MPs vote against PM in confidence vote

Both John Lamont and David Mundell voted against Boris Johnson. Credit: ITV Border/PA Images

Two of south Scotland's Conservative MPs have announced they voted against the Prime Minister in the Conservative party's no confidence motion last night (6 June).

Boris Johnson will remain Prime Minister after scraping through a confidence vote aimed at ousting him.

Boris Johnson to remain prime minister after winning confidence vote
Future far from secure after Boris Johnson survives no-confidence vote

Both John Lamont, the member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and David Mundell, who represents Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale have spoken publicly about how they cast their vote in the secret ballot.

Their votes were part of the Scottish rebellion which saw four out of six MP's north of the border voting to oust him.

As well as voting no-confidence, Mr Lamont also resigned as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary.

Speaking ahead of the vote Mr Lamont told ITV News that he was "sickened by the events happening in Downing Street", but his real concern was that the government's work is being lost amongst discussions around Partygate.

"The whole Partygate scandal cause me a lot of unease"

Posting on social media he announced his resignation, saying: “After considerable thought and reflection, I have made the very difficult decision to resign as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary.

"I have loved working with Liz Truss, the team at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and, prior to that, at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.

“However, tonight I voted against the Prime Minister in the vote of confidence."

“I have consulted widely with my constituents in the Scottish Borders. I’ve also received thousands of emails and had countless conversations about the Prime Minister’s performance over the last few weeks and months.

"The events in Downing Street during the lockdown were unacceptable. People across the country have been rightly deeply angered by what went on."

Mr Lamont added that while he recognised changes had been made at Downing Street "the government has become overwhelmed by these events, to the detriment of my constituents and people across the United Kingdom".

“This has been an incredibly difficult decision,"he said.

"I know that many colleagues have been wrestling with their conscience during today and I respect that some MPs will have reached a different conclusion.”

The under-fire PM won with just 59% of the vote as a huge 148 Tory MPs said they wanted him replacing - a highly damaging result for the PM.

Just 211 Tory MPs supported him out of all 359 who cast their ballots.

Mr Mundell, who was Secretary of State for Scotland under David Cameron, took his remarks to Twitter.

He said: "After a difficult couple of years and listening to the views of my constituents, I voted tonight for a fresh start and new leadership for our country."

The remaining south of Scotland MP, Alister Jack, who represents Dumfries and Galloway and is the present Scottish Secretary supported Mr Johnson.

He said: “As I have been clear throughout, the Prime Minister has my full support. I voted for him tonight, and I am very pleased that he has received the backing of a clear majority of the Parliamentary party. We now need to put this behind us, and get on with what really matters - tackling the very real major challenges we face both at home and abroad.”

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