London — After defiantly rejecting calls for his resignation, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected to step down as leader of his party on Thursday, which will eventually see him removed from the country’s top job. Johnson’s office at 10 Downing Street confirmed that he would “make a statement to the country today,” as the BBC and other British news outlets said he’d agreed to resign.
You can watch Johnson address the U.K. and the world from outside his Downing Street office in the player at the top of this article.
The move came after dozens of high-profile resignations by members of his cabinet and government and calls for his exit by members of his own party.
Johnson, 58, was expected to publicly announce his resignation as leader of the Conservative Party later Thursday, but he intends to stay on as prime minister until the fall and has appointed a new cabinet, CBS News partner network BBC News reported. That plan was quickly called into question by fellow Conservatives.
BBC News quoted Conservative lawmaker and former national Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng as saying the country, not just the party, needs a new leader “as soon as practicable,” and former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said in a tweet that there was “no way he can stay on until October. It’s arrant nonsense to think he can.”
The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Kier Starmer, said Thursday that Johnson “needs to go. He can’t cling on,” as a caretaker prime minister. If Johnson doesn’t step down as prime minister, Starmer warned that “Labour will, in the national interest, bring a no confidence vote. Because this can’t go on.”
Earlier Thursday, when reports of Johnson’s decision to resign first emerged, Conservative Member of Parliament Tobias Ellwood told the BBC that he was happy that Johnson had “recognized the damage that was being done, not just to the party brand but also our international stock,” and decided to step down.
A long series of scandals has engulfed Johnson, the latest involving former government minister Chris Pincher, who recently resigned after being accused of groping two men. Pincher was appointed as deputy chief whip by Johnson, and the prime minister initially claimed that he did not know about the misconduct allegations against Pincher.
Johnson’s office changed the official account of what the prime minister knew two times over the last week as new information came to light.
Johnson’s resignation will mark the end of his nearly three-year spell as leader of the Conservative Party, and the beginning of the end of his time as prime minister.
Just last month, he narrowly survived a vote of no confidence by his own party. In April, he was fined by police for violating COVID-19 restrictions during Britain’s pandemic lockdown, when he attended parties at his official residence.
On Wednesday – even after more dozens of his government had resigned – Johnson appeared to be remaining defiant.
“Frankly … the job of the prime minister in difficult circumstances, when he’s been handed a colossal mandate, is to keep going,” he told the British Parliament’s House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
During that meeting Johnson was repeatedly criticized and urged by a number of ministers from opposition parties to step down. As the meeting wrapped up, lawmakers could be heard shouting: “Bye, Boris!”
For those members of government who resigned Tuesday and Wednesday, the Pincher scandal appeared to have been the last straw.
Media reports contradicted the initial story conveyed by Johnson’s office, which stated that he didn’t know anything about specific allegations against Pincher. The prime minister then changed his line and said he had been aware of some allegations, but that they had not amounted to formal complaints.
That was followed by a former senior civil servant alleging publicly that Johnson had been briefed “in person” about a previous formal complaint against Pincher, prompting accusations that Johnson had lied. Johnson responded by saying he had failed to recall that specific briefing, and that he regretted not acting on the information.
“Treading the tightrope between loyalty and integrity has become impossible in recent months, and Mr. Speaker, I will never risk losing my integrity,” Sajid Javid, the former health minister, said in his resignation statement during Wednesday’s parliamentary gathering.
Javid said he had given the prime minister the benefit of the doubt for the last time.
Johnson’s tenure as prime minister will likely be remembered most for his ushering of Britain’s contentious “Brexit” from the European Union, a cause he had championed and campaigned for since the last few months in his previous job, as the Mayor of London.
Immediately after the 2016 referendum that saw U.K. voters narrowly approve the EU exit, Johnson was appointed British Foreign Secretary by then-Prime Minister Theresa May.
In 2018, however, he resigned from that post over what he claimed was May’s inability to negotiation a Brexit deal with the EU.
About a year later, May herself was forced to resign after members of her own Conservative Party rejected several of her proposed Brexit deals. Johnson was selected to replace her. It was not until December 2019 that Johnson’s EU Withdrawal Agreement was finally approved by the British Parliament, and the U.K. officially left the European Union the following month.
