Prime Minister Boris johnson is working to keep his
power after two of his top senior cabinet members
resigned. The resignations come amid growing backlash
over johnson's handling of the latest government
scandal involving sexual misconduct and excessive
drinking. Yes, I think it was a mistake and I apologize
for for it. I think in hindsight it was the wrong thin
to do. I apologize to everybody who's been badly
affected by it and I just want to make absolutely cl
that there's no place in this government for anybody
who uh is predatory or who abuses their position of
power. Laura Macon Isherwood joins us live from London
this morning or what does this mean for the current
state of the government Well, it's pretty precarious at
the moment. There are more resignations being handed
We've had a couple in the last few hours here in London
of course, and it's not a great situation for the Prime
Minister to be in because while he's been able to
replace those big jobs that were left those holes left
by the Chancellor Rishi soon ac and the Health
Secretary, Sajid Javid overnigh If more and more
people decide to leave his Cabinet, he could be left
struggling to replace them overall. Now, Boris johnson
has been in Parliament already today. He's faced
questions during Prime Minister's questions there. He
defended the way he dealt with those sexual assault
allegations brought against his deputy chief whip chris
pincher saying that he did all he could once he was
aware of the severity of those claims that the
opposition party Labor leader, Sir Keir Starmer has
gone really hard on him and said that basically these
resignations are a sign of wider integrity problems
within the Conservative Party. And said it's probably
the first example in history of a sinking ship leaving
a rat. And can you tell us a little bit more laura
about how the general public is responding to all of
this happening Yeah, well, a snap poll put out by
yougov, which is a polling company here in the UK has
actually found that 69% of British people now believe
that Boris Johnson should resign as prime minister.
That is a huge figure. It's one that the wider
conservative party will probabl be looking at as a
demonstration of the likelihood that Boris johnson may
be able to lead their party to a win should an election
be called. Of course, this would indicate that there'
not a huge amount of support among the british publi
but Boris johnson will probably be arguing that his
popularity is what will the conservatives into
government last time around anyway. He's currently got
a huge majority in parliament and that's probably
sentiment that he's going to be hanging onto. He's
still got a lot of his key allies in his cabinet aroun
him, the Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic raab the Home
Secretary. Priti Patel, the Defense Secretary. Ben
Wallace as well. And now it seems it could be largely
up to Boris johnson's self belief how long he thinks he
can hang on to those keys to number 10. So this isn't
the first time that johnson's cabinet has gotten in
some trouble on Downing Street. What do you think his
political future holds at this point It's been really
turbulent, hasn't it Over the last few weeks and months,
we've had party gate, we've had claims that
conservatives have been lobbied by people and taking
backhanded cash amounts in order to get things into
government and through into policy. But Boris johnson
seems to just continue to hang on, deal with everything.
Incident one by one and try to tell the public it's
okay. And they need to effectively move on. There are
bigger fish to fry. But now it seems, with these
resignations, wider concern among the Conservative
Party that there could be moves to try to oust him,
even if he doesn't resign. So the 1922 committee,
that's a group of backbench mps are looking to come
together and perhaps change party rules in order to
bring about another no confiden vote in him as leader.
You'll remember that phrase, of course, because in the
last few weeks, Boris johnson faced a no confidence
vote among his own party. He survived that and under
previous rules or current rules that are in place, he
should have another 12 months as Prime Minister withou
a further challenge. But it now seems people are really
getting to the point where they want something done.
And it could be that another challenge is on the way if
that group of conservative mps can bring a change to
those rules, so we're going to have to wait and see
what happens. Obviously, there' a lot of movement in
Westminster right now, nothing is clear. All right,
Laura making Isherwood reporting live from London.
Thanks so much.