Queen ‘must SACK Boris Johnson if he refuses to quit after losing Commons confidence vote’

Remainers today warned the Queen will have to sack Boris Johnson if he refuses to quit after losing a Commons confidence vote over No Deal Brexit.

Allies of the PM have made clear he will simply refuse to resign if rebel Tories join forces with Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems and independents to pass a no confidence motion.

Instead of going quietly, Mr Johnson would wait for an election to be triggered and use his executive powers to set the date of an election for after the Brexit date of October 31, so MPs cannot stop the process. 

Pro-EU MPs admitted that a legal loophole could allow Mr Johnson to postpone the election date by at least a month – potentially pushing it to late November.   

But one senior source told MailOnline the monarch would have to intervene before then if Mr Johnson was playing ‘childish games’ with the constitution.

‘We have an unwritten constitution but there are well established conventions,’ the MP said. ‘Convention number one is that a PM does not or cannot hold office without the consent of the House of Commons.’

If Mr Johnson tried to ‘bury himself’ in Downing Street and tried to stop a new government taking over, the monarch would step in despite the risks of getting embroiled in politics, the Remainer source said.

‘The Queen would write him a letter saying he is dismissed,’ they insisted. ‘She would have to sack him. Of course she would.’  

Boris Johnson would refuse to quit No 10 if he lost a confidence vote in the Commons and will instead force through a No Deal Brexit, it has emerged

Boris Johnson would refuse to quit No 10 if he lost a confidence vote in the Commons and will instead force through a No Deal Brexit, it has emerged

Remainers says the Queen (pictured at Buckingham Palace in May) would be forced to 'sack' Mr Johnson if he refused to resign after losing a Commons confidence vote

Remainers says the Queen (pictured at Buckingham Palace in May) would be forced to ‘sack’ Mr Johnson if he refused to resign after losing a Commons confidence vote

Yesterday Mr Johnson's spokesman said the UK will leave the EU on October 31 by 'any means necessary'

Yesterday Mr Johnson’s spokesman said the UK will leave the EU on October 31 by ‘any means necessary’

Labour is already plotting to join forces with Tory rebels to try to collapse the Government and replace Mr Johnson as Prime Minister if he pursues a No Deal departure from the European Union on October 31.

But allies say Mr Johnson would stay in office even if he lost a confidence vote – and trigger a general election to take place after the Brexit date so the UK would leave the EU automatically during the campaign.

Constitutional experts said Mr Johnson is not legally compelled to leave No 10 even if the Commons passes a no confidence motion.

However, if he did refuse to follow ‘constitutional precedent’ it would spark a crisis that could drag the Queen into Brexit politics.

Details of Downing Street’s approach emerged from comments made by his senior aide, Dominic Cummings, who is said to have ‘laughed’ at the idea that his boss would walk away in response to a confidence vote.

Yesterday the PM’s spokesman said the UK will leave the EU on October 31 by ‘any means necessary’.

But aides are braced for rebel Tory MPs, led by former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, to try ‘every trick in the book’ to stop No Deal when they return in September. 

The nuclear option is to order a confidence vote under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act.

Last night Mr Corbyn gave his clearest signal yet he would make this move in September, saying the motion would be tabled at an ‘appropriate very early time’.

Mr Grieve is said to believe that if he can win the vote, Mr Johnson would be forced to leave office. MPs could then install a prime minister who would extend Article 50, preventing No Deal. However, when this proposition was put to Mr Cummings – the mastermind behind the Vote Leave campaign – he is said to have laughed.

‘Someone put Grieve’s idea to Cummings that if we lose a vote of no confidence the PM will have to resign. He spat out his drink laughing,’ a senior No 10 official told the Financial Times.

Catherine Haddon, a senior fellow at the Institute For Government think-tank, said Mr Grieve’s plan relied on Mr Johnson resigning if he lost a no confidence vote. She added: ‘But it isn’t a legally binding requirement of the Act that he step down.

The Queen may have to become involved if Mr Johnson refused to accept a No Confidence vote

Dominic Cummings was said to have 'laughed' at the suggestion of Boris quitting

The Queen (left) could have to become involved if Mr Johnson refused to accept a No Confidence vote, but it well-known she does not wish to be dragged into the situation. Johnson’s special adviser Dominic Cummings was said to have ‘laughed’ at the suggestion of the PM quitting

‘If Parliament passed a motion saying we have no confidence in the Prime Minister and we wish a government to be formed under whoever, that would put the Queen under enormous pressure to say, “I think you should resign because the Commons has confidence in another individual.” But the Queen wants to stay out of politics, so she wouldn’t want to do that.’

Asked about the issue, a senior Downing Street source said: ‘This Government will use any means necessary to deliver Brexit on October 31.’

Speaking on a visit to Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, Lincolnshire, which is set to benefit from the £1.8billion NHS funding boost, Mr Johnson was asked if he was preparing to fight an election.

He said: ‘The answer is no. The people of the UK voted in the election in 2015, they had a referendum in 2016 and another election in 2017. They want us to deliver what they asked for – and that is for us to leave the EU. The last thing I want to do is call another election.’       

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk