LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — All politicians need luck and Boris Johnson — once described as a “greased piglet” for his uncanny powers of political escapology — has had more than most in his career.

That lucky streak of surviving crisis after crisis continued on Monday after he won a vote of confidence by his own Conservative colleagues, keeping him in power as party leader and UK prime minister.

But with some 40 per cent of Tory MPs refusing to back him, his authority has been severely weakened.

The Brexit figurehead called the 211-148 split a “convincing result, a decisive result”. “As a Government we can move on and focus on the stuff that really matters,” he told reporters.

The vote — just over two years after he won a landslide general election victory — was brought after a string of scandals that have left the Tory party’s standing in tatters.

Chief among them was the “Partygate” controversy over lockdown-breaking events at Downing Street, which caused public outrage and saw him become the first serving UK prime minister to have broken the law.

Johnson, 57, needed the backing of 180 MPs to survive the vote — a majority of one out of the 359 sitting Conservatives in Parliament.

Defeat would have meant an end to his time as party leader and prime minister until a replacement was found in an internal leadership contest.

Speculation will now turn to whether Johnson can survive, having lost the confidence of so many of his own MPs — and whether senior ministers will now resign.

In previous Tory ballots, predecessors Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May both ultimately resigned despite narrowly winning their own votes, deciding that their premierships were terminally damaged.

“The Conservative Government now believes that breaking the law is no impediment to making the law,” the main Opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer said. “The Conservative party now believes the British public have no right to expect honest politicians.”

Johnson has steadfastly refused to resign over “Partygate”.