David Davis signals he could submit letter of no confidence in Boris Johnson

Former Brexit Secretary Mr Davis said that he would consult with his constituency party and “recommend that we send in a letter”.

A flurry of MPs have gone public in recent days with their calls for the Prime Minister to quit and submissions of letters of no confidence to the chair of the backbench 1922 committee in the wake of partygate.

Haltemprice and Howden MP Mr Davis believes the scandal has led to a loss of trust in Mr Johnson amid “large parts of the population”.

He told Times Radio this morning: “I will recommend that we send in a letter, but I will take their views first.”

He added: “My concern about this, as I said when I intervened two weeks ago, was that this would be a death of a thousand cuts over months or even over a year, which is what’s happened with every previous leader of the Conservative Party who has been removed; it’s taken a long time.

“And in that time the country is partially paralysed, every single issue is seen through the lens of ‘is it there to promote Boris or prop up Boris’.”

The situation “will do more and more damage to the Conservative Party itself, it will make it less and less electable too, even if you did have somebody new in a year’s time, they may have an impossible job”.

Mr Davis told Mr Johnson to “in the name of God, go” during Prime Minister’s Questions two weeks ago, in a move that prompted some criticism from Conservative colleagues.

The comments came in the same session that saw Bury South MP Christian Wakeford defect from the Tory benches to Labour.

Three more Tories rescinded their support for the Prime Minister on Wednesday, including chair of the Defence Select Committee Tobias Ellwood.

Anthony Mangnall, who entered Parliament in 2019, followed by criticising Mr Johnson’s “actions and mistruths” as he said he had also submitted his demand to the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers.

Then came long-standing MP Sir Gary Streeter, who said he had taken the same step because he “cannot reconcile the pain and sacrifice” of the vast majority of the public with the “attitude and activities” of those in Downing Street.