Boris Johnson will announce his resignation as British prime minister on Thursday, a government source said, after he was abandoned by ministers and his Conservative Party's lawmakers who said he was no longer fit to govern.
With eight ministers, including two secretaries of state, resigning in the last two hours, an isolated and powerless Johnson was set to bow to the inevitable and declare he was stepping down later.
His Downing Street office confirmed that Johnson would make a statement to the country later.
After days of battling for his job, Johnson had been abandoned by all but a handful of allies after the latest in a series of scandals broke their willingness to support him."His resignation was inevitable," Justin Tomlinson, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, said on Twitter. "As a party we must quickly unite and focus on what matters. These are serious times on many fronts."
The Conservatives will now have to elect a new leader, a process which could take about two months.
In a sign of his evaporating support over one of the most turbulent 24 hours in recent British political history, Johnson's finance minister, Nadhim Zahawi, who was only appointed to his post on Tuesday, had called on his boss to resign.
"This is not sustainable and it will only get worse: for you, for the Conservative Party and most importantly of all the country," he said on Twitter. "You must do the right thing and go now."
Some of those that remained in post, including defence minister Ben Wallace, said they were only doing so because they had an obligation to keep the country safe.
There had been so many ministerial resignations that the government was facing paralysis.
The ebullient Johnson came to power nearly three years ago, promising to deliver Britain's departure from the European Union and rescue it from the bitter wrangling that followed the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Since then, some Conservatives had enthusiastically backed the former journalist and London mayor while others, despite reservations, supported him because he was able to appeal to parts of the electorate that usually rejected their party.
That was borne out in the December 2019 election. But his administration's combative and often chaotic approach to governing and a series of scandals have exhausted the goodwill of many of his lawmakers while opinion polls show he is no longer popular with the public at large.
The recent crisis erupted after lawmaker Chris Pincher, who held a government role involved in pastoral care, was forced to quit over accusations he groped men in a private member's club.
Johnson had to apologise after it emerged that he was briefed that Pincher had been the subject of previous sexual misconduct complaints before he appointed him. The prime minister said he had forgotten.
This followed months of scandals and missteps, including a damning report into boozy parties at his Downing Street residence and office that broke strict Covid-19 lockdown rules and saw him fined by police over a gathering for his 56th birthday.
There have also been policy U-turns, an ill-fated defence of a lawmaker who broke lobbying rules, and criticism that he has not done enough to tackle inflation, with many Britons struggling to cope with rising fuel and food prices.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has agreed to step down , according to local media reports, bringing an end to a turbulent two and half years in office and triggering a search for a new leader.
Below is a summary of some of those who could be in the frame to replace him. However, there is no clear favourite and they are not listed in order of likely.
The foreign secretary has support among the ruling Conservative Party’s grassroots and has regularly topped polls of party members carried out by the website Conservative Home.
Truss has a carefully cultivated public image and was photographed in a tank last year, echoing a famous 1986 photo of Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.
The 46-year-old spent the first two years of Johnson’s premiership as international trade secretary, championing Brexit, and last year was appointed as Britain’s lead negotiator with the European Union.
Truss said on Monday that Johnson had her “100 percent backing” and she urged colleagues to support him.
Jeremy Hunt
The former foreign secretary, 55, finished second to Johnson in the 2019 leadership contest. He would offer a more serious and less controversial style of leadership after the turmoil of Johnson’s premiership.
Over the last two years, Hunt has used his experience as a former health secretary to chair parliament’s health select committee and has not been tarnished by having served in the current government.
Earlier this year, he said his ambition to become prime minister “hasn’t completely vanished”. Hunt said he voted to remove Johnson in a confidence vote last month that the prime minister narrowly won.
Ben Wallace
He began his political career as a member of Scotland’s devolved assembly in May 1999, before being first elected to the Westminster parliament in 2005.
He was security minister from 2016 until taking on his current role three years later, winning plaudits as his department evacuated British nationals and allies from Afghanistan last year, and for sending weapons to Kyiv.
Rishi Sunak
Sunak, who resigned as finance minister on Tuesday, saying the British public “rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously”, was until last year the favourite to succeed Johnson.
He was praised for a COVID-19 economic rescue package, including a costly jobs retention programme that averted mass unemployment.
But Sunak later faced criticism for not giving enough cost-of-living support to households. Revelations about his wealthy wife’s non-domiciled tax status and a fine he received, along with Johnson, for breaking COVID lockdown rules have damaged his standing.
His tax-and-spend budget last year put Britain on course for its biggest tax burden since the 1950s, undermining his claims to favour lower taxes.
Sajid Javid
Javid was the first cabinet minister to resign in protest over accusations that Johnson misled the public over what he knew about sexual harassment allegations against a Conservative politician.
A former banker and a champion of free markets, Javid has served in several cabinet roles, most recently as health minister. He resigned as Johnson’s finance minister in 2020.
The son of Pakistani Muslim immigrant parents, he is a Thatcher admirer and finished fourth in the 2019 leadership contest to replace former Prime Minister Theresa May.
Nadhim Zahawi
The newly appointed finance minister impressed as vaccines minister when Britain had one of the world’s fastest rollouts of COVID jabs.
Zahawi’s personal story as a former refugee from Iraq who came to Britain as a child sets him apart from other contenders.
He co-founded polling company YouGov before entering parliament in 2010. His last job was as education secretary. Zahawi said last week that it would be a “privilege” to be prime minister at some stage.
Penny Mordaunt
The former defence secretary was sacked by Johnson when he became prime minister after she endorsed his rival Hunt during the last leadership contest.
Mordaunt was a passionate supporter of leaving the EU and made national headlines by taking part in a now-defunct reality TV diving show.
Currently a junior trade minister, Mordaunt called the lockdown-breaking parties in government “shameful”. She had previously expressed loyalty to Johnson.
Tom Tugendhat
The chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, and a former soldier who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, has already indicated he would run in any leadership contest.
He has been a regular critic of Johnson and would offer his party a clean break with previous governments.
However, he is relatively untested because he has never served in the cabinet.
Suella Braverman
A Brexit-backing attorney general, Braverman has indicated she will run for the leadership.
She was heavily criticised by lawyers during her tenure after the government sought to break international law over post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland.
