Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should 'think about' resigning

Ross, who completed a double U-turn by voting against Boris Johnson, admitted “he’s got to look at it” when asked if the Prime Minister should resign.

Speaking to the BBC, he said MPs from "across the entire parliamentary party" had no confidence in Mr Johnson, and never had a prime minister lost as much support as he had on Monday, Mr Ross added.

"I think he really does have to reflect on that," he said.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross

Earlier the Prime Minister thanked Cabinet colleagues for their efforts to support him during the confidence vote process, which saw more than four in 10 Tory MPs say they had lost faith in his leadership.

In an attempt to address criticism of his economic policies, Mr Johnson said the “fundamental Conservative instinct” was to allow people to decide how to spend their money, urging Cabinet ministers to cut costs.

He said “delivering tax cuts” would help deliver “considerable growth in employment and economic progress”.

Despite Mr Johnson’s attempts to draw a line under questions about his leadership, critics warned that the political crisis was not over after 41 per cent of his MPs said they no longer had confidence in him.

Tory MPs voted by 211 to 148 in support of the Prime Minister, but the scale of the opposition was greater than that seen in 2018 when Theresa May faced a confidence vote.

She was ultimately forced out within months.

Opening a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street, Mr Johnson said: “We are able now to draw a line under the issues that our opponents want to talk about.”

That included focusing on his “levelling up” agenda to address regional inequality, measures to help deal with the rising cost of living and improvements to public services.

But he asked ministers to “make sure that you’re thinking the whole time about cutting the costs of government, about cutting the costs that business has to face and of course cutting the costs that everybody else faces, families up and down the country”.

Allies have rallied round Mr Johnson, but former Tory leader Lord Hague said “the damage done to his premiership is severe” and he should quit rather than prolong the agony.

Mr Johnson’s authority faces further blows with tricky by-elections on June 23 in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, and Tiverton and Honiton in Devon.

But Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab sought to play down the impact of potential losses in the two Tory-held seats, claiming “governments of the day often lose by-elections to go on to win them at a general election”.

Lord Hague, writing in The Times, said he would have regarded a situation where more than a third of MPs voted against his leadership as “untenable”.

“If, with all the power of the party leadership, all the years of acquaintance with MPs, all the knowledge they have of your abilities and plans, you still cannot crush a vote of no confidence by a commanding margin, then not