Pressure heaped on Boris Johnson by Yorkshire MP as party-gate crisis continues

David Davis evoked a war-time Minister when he told his boss ‘‘in the name of God, go’’ during a fiery Prime Minister’s Questions.

Theresa May’s Brexit Secretary urged Mr Johnson to take responsibility for his decisions, something that he believes has been lacking so far.

The public demonstration of his faltering support came as a Red Wall MP defected and crossed the Chamber to join Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour ranks just moments before MPs gathered for the weekly showdown.

Haltemprice and Howden MP Mr Davis told Boris Johnson he had spent weeks defending him from “angry constituents”, including by reminding them of the “successes of Brexit”.

He said: “I expect my leaders to shoulder the responsibility for the actions they take. Yesterday he did the opposite of that. So, I will remind him of a quotation which may be familiar to his ear: Leopold Amery to Neville Chamberlain.

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go.”

In a later interview with The Telegraph newspaper, Mr Davis said he had made himself “the second most unpopular” person in the Conservative Party, but added of his boss: “I’ve gone from thinking maybe we can rescue it to maybe we just have to accelerate it and get it done.”

The remarks have surprised Yorkshire colleagues on the Conservative benches, with one MP referring to them as “ill-judged”.

Meanwhile, Thirsk and Malton MP Kevin Hollinrake said that a change in the party leader would not be in the national interest.

He told The Yorkshire Post: “It’s not the approach I would have taken.

“It’s rarely in the national interest to change leader, especially in the midst of a crisis,” he said, making reference to the Covid pandemic.

The intervention came during yet another key questions session for the Prime Minister, amid speculation that more MPs were submitting letters of no confidence in him, including a number who had won their seats during the 2019 landslide.

One such MP is Bury South’s Christian Wakeford, who dramatically defected from the Government side to Labour in the minutes before PMQs.

Mr Wakeford said the country needs a Government that “upholds the highest standards of integrity and probity”, but told Mr Johnson “both you and the Conservative Party as a whole have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and Government this country deserves”.

He was cheered by Labour MPs as he arrived in the Commons chamber for Prime Minister’s Questions and sat behind Sir Keir Starmer.

The Labour leader began Prime Minister’s Questions by “warmly welcoming” Mr Wakeford to his new party.

The tensions stem from the slew of stories over gatherings alleged to have been held at Number 10 over lockdown, with Mr Johnson having admitted he attended a “bring your own booze” party in the garden in May 2020.

He has insisted “nobody told me that what we were doing was against the rules” and he believed he was attending a work event.

But former aide Dominic Cummings alleged Mr Johnson was aware of the event in advance and was warned it broke the rules in place at the time.