Marx described capitalists as a band of warring brothers, United against labour but otherwise always seeking competitive advantage.
The Tory Party in 2022 hardly represents mainstream capitalist views but fractions and slices thereof. That is probably the best way to see Johnson’s victory in a confidence vote.
Traditionally the Tories had no such votes. A word was had and a leader discovered they were unwell (Eden, Macmillan). In more recent times votes of Tory MPs have been held-Thatcher lost in 1990. Speed picked up after Labour won in 1997 with IDS, Hague and Howard all summarily purged by Tory MPs.
The post 2016 years have added to the fighting. May won a confidence vote by a similar margin to Johnson but didn’t hang around long. Johnson may struggle for similar reasons. With 148 of his own MPs not backing him there will be issues where he loses Parliamentary votes.
Johnson reportedly was not one of those who campaigned against May (Rees Mogg was) but when Johnson became PM in July 2019 he made it clear that he would get a hard Brexit ignoring any no confidence vote and purging Tory MPs who didn’t back him.
The latest confidence vote suggests the war continues. The main beneficiary will be Labour provided Starmer manages to avoid agreeing with Johnson too much and preferably at all
From our point of view having, and then winning, the no-confidence vote is good. I definitely hope Johnson is still “leading” his party at the next election. But to imagine Starmer will stop fawning to the right-leaning electorate of his imagination seems implausible. I rather fantasise that the police will fine him (Starmer) and he will have to resign . But any putative replacements don’t look much better. keep on keeping on,Julie