Boris Johnson suffers seventh Parliamentary defeat in a row as MPs vote to wreck Conservative party conference

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Boris Johnson

• Boris Johnson suffers a record seventh defeat in the House of Commons after Members of Parliament voted against his request to allow MPs to leave parliament for the Conservative party conference.
• The refusal to allow the Conservatives a conference recess breaks a long tradition between the political parties in the UK.
• It comes after Johnson was ruled to have broken the law by suspending parliament for six weeks.
• The Conservatives had argued that any refusal would damage businesses in Manchester, where the conference is due to take place.
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Boris Johnson has suffered a record seventh House of Commons after Members of Parliament voted to wreck the Conservative party's annual conference by refusing them a parliamentary recess.

The party is due to meet in Manchester from Sunday with a speech by the prime minister due on Monday.

However, the defeat on Thursday means that parliament will still sit next week, throwing the party's plans for the event into chaos.

It raises the prospect of Conservative MPs shuttling between Manchester and London over the course of the conference, which runs from Sunday until Wednesday, and many are unlikely to attend at all.

Conferences are usually an opportunity for Cabinet ministers to make headline-grabbing policy announcements and can often hand the party in question a significant boost in the polls.

But Jeremy Corbyn indicated on Wednesday that Labour - which held its conference on the weekend - would not support any attempt to shut down parliament for conference next week until Boris Johnson backed down on his threats to break the law and force a no-deal Brexit on October 31.

Read more: Boris Johnson tells friends of murdered MP Jo Cox to back Brexit if they want to stop getting death threats

Former Conservative MPs also reportedly moved to vote against the motion following the prime minister's incendiary comments in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

"I won't support anything that shuts down parliament until it is absolutely clear that the government will abide by the law and apply for an extension," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Boris Johnson has a working majority of minus 43 in the Commons after withdrawing the Conservative whip from 21 rebels earlier in September, meaning he would struggle to win any vote.

Usually, the government tables a motion at the start of September to allow a recess for each party to hold its conference over the course of several weekends until October.

But Johnson instead attempted to shut down parliament from the start of September, meaning MPs did not have a chance to vote on the usual recess motion.

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