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Prime Minister Boris Johnson has agreed to step down after several high-profile Cabinet members resigned. However, he said he would stay on until a new leader is found, which could take months.
Boris Johnson has announced his resignation as Conservative leader and said the reason he fought so hard to remain in the post was a sense of duty.
However, Johnson said it was now “clearly the will” of the Conservative Party that there should be a new party head. He said the “herd instinct is powerful” in reference to the pressure placed upon him to stand down by fellow Conservatives.
“I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world,” Johnson said. “But them’s the breaks.”
Johnson said he had appointed a new Cabinet he will remain as prime minister until a new party chief is chosen. He promised to support the new leader of the party and said the government of the country would be carried on during the handover process.
“The reason I have fought so hard in the last few days to continue to deliver that mandate in person was not just because I wanted to do so, but because I felt it was my job, my duty, my obligation, to you to continue to do what we promised in 2019.
“In the last few days, I’ve tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we are delivering so much and when we have such a vast mandate…
“And I regret not to have been successful in those arguments and, of course, it’s painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself.”
Possible caretaker prime ministers?
UK Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab and former senior minister Michael Gove will not run to become the next Conservative leader, according to the right-leaning Daily Mail newspaper.
The two – both senior figures in the Johnson Cabinet — have both been touted as the possible caretaker prime minister if Johnson is forced out before the leader is elected.
Anyone taking the temporary prime ministerial role would most likely have to rule themselves out of the leadership race.
Gove, who served as secretary of state for “leveling up”, housing and communities, was sacked by Johnson late on Wednesday.
As Johnson’s deputy, having led the UK government when the prime minister was incapacitated by COVID-19, Raab is seen as most likely to succeed should there be a caretaker.