- Labour leader Keir Starmer is due to attend PMQs after recovering from COVID-19.
- He is expected to challenge
Boris Johnson over reports the PM attended a lockdown-busting party.
Boris Johnson is set for a showdown with Labour leader Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday after the Labour leader tested negative for COVID-19 after contracting it last week.
Starmer was forced to miss Prime Minister's Questions last week but returned a negative test on Wednesday, meaning he will be able to attend the House of Commons, according to Financial Times Whitehall Editor Sebastian Payne.
Johnson is facing one of the most perilous moments of his premiership after it was reported that he attended a "bring your own booze" Downing Street party during a national coronavirus lockdown.
A leaked email obtained by ITV News showed that the prime minister's Principal Private Secretary Martin Reynolds invited more than 100 people to the party in the Downing Street garden during May 2020, when groups were banned from mixing.
Senior Conservative MPs told Insider the prime minister may be forced to resign over the scandal, and a snap poll found that two-thirds of respondents said Johnson should resign in the wake of the scandal.
The report follows multiple allegations of other parties in Downing Street which are the subject of an ongoing inquiry by civil servant Sue Gray.
The prime minister has refused to comment publicly on whether he attended the party, and the Conservative benches in parliament were noticeably bare when a junior minister appeared in the Commons on Tuesday to give a statement about the alleged rule-breaking.
One Conservative MP told Insider there had been a "definite mood shift in colleagues yesterday."
"Don't think many see how the PM gets out of this one," they added.
A second MP said: "Unfortunately I think [his] credibility with the public is shot and I think [it's] very difficult to recover that, particularly with the choppy waters we are likely to head into in the months ahead."
Another said it was "very much when rather than if, and how long he can limp on."
Asked what they would like the prime minister to say at Prime Minister's Questions, another MP replied: "Bye."
Another, however, said that the prime minister still had enough backing from the public to continue. "They still want him to succeed. It's not over with the public," the MP told Insider.
Tory MPs on Tuesday described his handling of the scandal to Insider as a "shitshow." His spokesperson on Tuesday refused to answer 25 questions about the matter and said it was a matter for Gray's inquiry.
A snap Savanta/ComRes poll carried out on Tuesday found that 66% of respondents said Johnson should resign, 12 points up from December in the wake of a scandal about a separate party.
—Savanta ComRes (@SavantaComRes) January 11, 2022
Senior Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood on Wednesday told the prime minister to apologise for attending the party.
"I strongly urge the PM to act now, to apologise for Number 10's poor judgement, to show some contrition and to be committed to be committed to publicly respond to Gray's findings when they come up," he told Sky News.
Other senior Tories including Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross have also called on Johnson to ""come forward and say if he was at the party or not."
"If he has breached his own guidance, if he has not been truthful, that is an extremely important issue," Ross told Sky News.
"I've said previously if the Prime Minister has misled Parliament, then he must resign."
The BBC suggested that the prime minister could make a statement directly before Prime Minister's Questions to address the allegations directly.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner told Sky News on Wednesday that the prime minister's position was "completely untenable" and said that Johnson "not only broke the rules but he's lied to the British public."