Conservative MP Michael Fabricant said the Conservative Party would “lose big time” if a general election were called now, in the wake of the confidence vote in Boris Johnson on Monday evening.
Mr Fabricant told PA news agency: “If there were a general election tomorrow, we would lose and we would lose big time.
“But, you know what, there isn’t going to be a general election tomorrow. There’s a lot of water that’s got to flow under the bridge between now and the general election.
“Boris Johnson is a winner by his nature and I don’t think he is going to be a fool and miss this opportunity now to rebuild the support for the party, which he had back in 2019.”
Mr Fabricant described the result in the confidence vote as “quite some way better” than he anticipated, and maintained that the MPs who voted against the Prime Minister would “not knife him in the back” in the wake of his victory.
Michael Fabricant
GB News
He added: “The result turned out to be quite some way better than I anticipated. It’s never good for a Prime Minister to have a vote of no confidence against him.
“But he won, and he won by sufficient majority. We can, you know, move on from this.”
When asked how the Prime Minister will be able to continue to govern with over 140 MPs having come out against him, he said: “He’s well aware of that, but it’s not like they’re going to knife him in the back.
“Philip Davies was very good, he said this morning on GB News that he voted against the Prime Minister, but we’ve got a result. And now we’ve got to just get on with it.”
MP for Shipley Mr Davies said that MPs should “accept the result” of Monday night’s confidence vote after himself voting against Boris Johnson.