LONDON — A day after suffering two shattering defections from his cabinet, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain appeared determined to fight on Wednesday. But the odds of his political survival seemed ever more doubtful as lawmakers prepared to grill him in Parliament over recent scandals and members of his own Conservative Party meet to lay the groundwork for another possible no-confidence vote.
The two ministers — the chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, and the health secretary, Sajid Javid — resigned after Mr. Johnson apologized for the latest scandal to engulf his government, one that involves accusations of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking by a Conservative Party lawmaker. Several other officials have since followed, including Will Quince, the minister for children and families, who at the start of the week had stoutly defended Mr. Johnson’s role in the scandal.
Their departures broke open a movement against Mr. Johnson within his party that has been building against him for months, fueled by a stream of embarrassing reports of social gatherings at Downing Street that violated the government’s own coronavirus lockdown rules.
Mr. Johnson moved quickly to announce replacements for Mr. Sunak and Mr. Javid, signaling that he planned to try to steady the government and battle for his job. And he did his best to project a defiant image: According to the Times of London, when an ally asked him on Tuesday evening whether he planned to resign, he replied with the epithet “F- that.”
Still, by all accounts, the prime minister was in greater political peril than at any other time in his tumultuous three-year tenure in Downing Street.
A freewheeling journalist turned politician, Mr. Johnson seemed to defy the laws of political gravity, surviving multiple investigations, a criminal fine by the police, and a no-confidence vote among lawmakers in his Conservative Party only last month — all related to the parties held in Downing Street during coronavirus lockdowns.
But it was the more recent outcry over Mr. Johnson’s promotion of a Conservative lawmaker, Chris Pincher, that appeared to tip Mr. Sunak and Mr. Javid, and set the stage for the latest round of recrimination.
Last week, Mr. Pincher resigned as the party’s deputy chief whip after admitting having been drunk at a private members’ club in London where, it was alleged, he groped two men. On Tuesday, Downing Street admitted that Mr. Johnson had been told about previous accusations against Mr. Pincher in 2019 — something that Mr. Johnson’s office initially denied. In what has become a familiar ritual in British politics, the prime minister delivered an apology on the BBC for elevating Mr. Pincher.
On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson will face questioning by the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, during Prime Minister’s Questions. In the afternoon, the prime minister goes before the liaison committee in the House of Commons, where he is likely to face hostile questions from Conservatives as well as opposition members.
Mr. Starmer could face a reckoning of his own on Wednesday: The police in Durham, England, are about to release their findings of an investigation into whether he violated the law by taking part in a beer-and-Indian-food dinner with other party officials during a pandemic lockdown. Mr. Starmer has vowed to resign if the police impose a fine on him.
Separately, members of the Conservative Party’s 1922 committee are scheduled to meet, potentially setting the wheels in motion for another no-confidence vote in Mr. Johnson. Because he survived the recent confidence vote, he cannot face another one for a year unless the party’s rules are changed — a prospect that could become likely if the committee elects well-known opponents to his leadership.
Part of Mr. Johnson’s strength had been the unified support of his cabinet, despite an unrelenting tide of negative headlines. But the latest losses heightened fears among many Conservatives that Mr. Johnson had lost his touch as a champion vote-getter.
“It’s easy to dismiss the seemingly endless drip-drip-drip of resignation letters being submitted by supposedly minor members of the government,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “But it only serves to strengthen the impression that Boris is slowly but surely bleeding out.”
