Conservative MPs must grow a backbone and remove PM now, MP tells Parliament

On the floor of the House of Commons this week, South Lakes MP Tim Farron urged Conservative backbenchers to remove the Prime Minister after Boris Johnson was fined for breaking his own lockdown laws.

Tim also criticised some Conservative MPs for "hiding behind the suffering of the people in Ukraine as an excuse not to take action now".

Speaking during a debate in Parliament on whether the Prime Minister misled Parliament on the issue, Tim said: "What is also not right is to hide behind the suffering of the people in Ukraine as an excuse not to take action now. It is fundamentally weak for some Conservative Members to say that we must wait until some indeterminate time when that suffering might be over to take the action that needs to be taken.

"The simple fact is that Ukraine is a reason why the Prime Minister should go, and should go now, because we are in a state of paralysis. We know that every decision he takes is coloured by his desire to survive, and affects our own position as a country. We are diverted by this ongoing soap opera, this saga, this sorry state of affairs.

"The sad conclusion I have reached is that we now have a Conservative party that is too ashamed of the Prime Minister to defend him, but too weak to remove him.

"Today is the day when the Conservatives need to discover their backbone."