Boris Johnson finally quit the Tory leadership on Thursday after an onslaught of ministerial resignations and calls for him to go from senior colleagues – even if he hopes to cling on in Downing Street until October as the Conservatives choose a new leader. While there is no clear favourite, a new poll of party members shows Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is the narrow favourite. Read our live blog below to see how the day's events unfolded. All times are in Paris time (GMT+2).
11:50pm: Conservative MP launches bid to replace Johnson
British Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat said late Thursday he was launching his bid to succeed Boris Johnson, the first candidate to announce their campaign since the premier announced his resignation.
In an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph, Tugendhat who heads parliament's foreign affairs committee, confirmed his intention to stand for the leadership of the Conservative party, saying he wanted to bring together a "broad coalition" for a "clean start".
"I have served before -- in the military, and now in Parliament. Now I hope to answer the call once again as prime minister," he wrote.
Tugendhat had indicated he would stand in any leadership contest but there is no love lost between him and Johnson loyalists.
A hawk on China, he has been critical of the government's handling of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The timetable to nominate Johnson's replacement will be set out next week.
Party grandees hope to conclude the two-stage contest well before the Conservative party holds its annual conference in October.
10:09pm: Johnson finds it 'incredible' he cannot stay on
Johnson has made "new appointments to the government and has said that he intends to be the caretaker prime minister and will not make any big decisions", noted FRANCE 24's Bénédicte Paviot, reporting from Downing Street.
"He could have to make all kinds of decisions. The fact and the truth [is] that Boris Johnson finds it so painful, so sad and to him so incredible that he was not successful in persuading his own party that he was the best man. [...] He's the one, he says, with the colossal mandate he got back in 2019, the 80 seat majority, the best since 1987 and Margaret Thatcher -- that he got, he thinks, a new mandate when he won (narrowly, it has to be said) a vote of no confidence just a month ago. [Many Tories] think he's going to further damage the office of prime minister and the Conservative Party."
9:04pm: Biden says special relationship still 'strong and enduring'
US President Joe Biden said in a statement seen by CBS News that the Anglo-American "special relationship" is still "strong and enduring", regardless of Johnson’s resignation.
Biden said is keen to carry on working closely with the British government on "a range of important priorities" including a "united approach" to the war in Ukraine.
Many observers expected Biden to have rocky relations with Johnson, given Democrats’ longstanding scepticism about Brexit. However, Biden signalled that his White House still relies on the special relationship when he Johnson was the leader he called in March 2021 to suggest democratic states work together to create an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
8:50pm: Johnson to continue as a member of parliament after resigning as PM, aide says
Johnson plans to continue as a member of parliament when he steps down as prime minister, one of his close aides said on Thursday.
Johnson announced earlier on Thursday he would quit as prime minister, but stay in the post until his successor was chosen.
"Good to hear the boss will carry on as an MP," James Duddridge, Johnson's parliamentary private secretary, said on Twitter.
7:42pm: Next Tory leader 'obviously' going to maintain commitment to Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed his "sadness" over Johnson's departure and thanked him for his fulsome support for Ukraine, as shown by two visits to Kyiv and the delivery of huge amounts of weaponry including Britain's state-of-the-art NLAW anti-tank missiles used to great effect as Ukraine repelled the early Russian advance on Kyiv.
"The UK has committed to a military aid package for Ukraine, so that has now gone up to a total of £2.3 billion; there was a fresh package announced at the end of June," noted FRANCE 24 International Affairs Editor Armen Georgian. "Any future Conservative leader is obviously going to maintain that sort of commitment to Ukraine. So that means any future leader is not going to be any less belligerent to Russia as far as the Russian ambassador in London is concerned."
6:28pm: Defence Secretary Wallace narrow favourite to take over, poll suggests
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is the narrow favourite in a crowded field of potential candidates to replace Boris Johnson, a YouGov poll among Conservative party members showed. Wallace has 13 percent of support, one point ahead of junior trade minister Penny Mordaunt.
Best known among international observers for his robust stance in support of Ukraine against the Russian invasion, Wallace was considered a Johnson loyalist. But many perceive Wallace as having much more pro-European instincts than Johnson, especially seeing as he spent years as a close aide to Ken Clarke, the famously Europhile former chancellor, when Clarke was lord chancellor in David Cameron's premiership.
Mordaunt is a staunch Brexiteer best known for her brief tenure as Theresa May's defence secretary in 2019. Johnson demoted her to the backbenches after she backed his rival Jeremy Hunt during the summer 2019 Tory leadership contest.
Rishi Sunak, chancellor until two days ago, is in third place in the poll with 10 percent support. During the coronavirus crisis Sunak was hailed for his generous furlough scheme to protect jobs during lockdowns. But Sunak’s popularity diminished in April when he was fined for Partygate lockdown breaches, like Johnson – and when it was revealed that his multi-millionaire wife Akshata Murthy has non-domiciled status, meaning she did not pay tax on income earned overseas while residing in the UK.
Conservative MPs vote on the contenders, eliminating the worst performing one in each vote, until party members choose between the final two.
6:20pm: Brussels hopeful yet wary on UK ties after Johnson exit
After years of tense relations with Britain, the EU was Thursday seeing hope of improved ties following the resignation of Brexit champion Boris Johnson, though wariness lingered.
While the European Commission publicly dodged commenting about the political upheaval in the UK, others in Brussels' orbit let loose.
"The departure of Boris Johnson opens a new page in relations with Britain," Michel Barnier, the former top EU negotiator for Brexit, tweeted.
"May it be more constructive, more respectful of commitments made, in particular regarding peace & stability in Northern Ireland, and more friendly with partners in the EU. Because there's so much more to be done together."
5:56pm: 'A government has to govern'
It is likely that the Tory Party will "try to get a quick decision" on Johnson's successor this side of parliament's summer recess, "because what they're worried about is how the government will carry on functioning", said Catherine Barnard, a professor of EU and employment law at Cambridge University. "Remember, several members of his cabinet have either resigned or said he's not fit to be prime minister. How can he sit round the cabinet table and work alongside them?"
"The UK is a very active participant in supporting the Ukrainians in the war against Russia," Barnard underlined. "There's a very serious cost of living crisis in the UK. And not to mention the problems with the National Health Service. A government needs to govern, not to have to be constantly infighting -- and that's the risk if he stays in his post until the autumn."
5:56pm: Johnson clinging on was 'embarrassing'
Tory MP Bob Neill told FRANCE 24 that Johnson staying until Octover is "unlikely" and would be "unsatisfactory".
"I hope a dawning of common sense and reality" explains why Johnson finally announced his resignation despite his initial defiance against the onslaught of ministerial resignations. Johnson clinging on to the Tory leadership was "embarrassing" and "demeaning" to the Conservative Party, the government and the country.
4:58pm: Zelensky expresses 'sadness' over Johnson's resignation
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday telephoned Boris Johnson to express his "sadness" over the British leader's resignation as Conservative leader and impending departure as prime minister, Kyiv said.
"We all welcome this news with sadness. Not only me, but also all of Ukrainian society which sympathises with you a lot," the presidency quoted Zelensky as saying, reiterating how grateful Ukrainians were for the British prime minister's support since the Russian invasion.
Johnson has been seen as one of Ukraine's most vocal and fervent supporters in the West.
"We don't doubt that Great Britain's support will continue, but your personal leadership and your charisma made it special," said Zelensky.
4:51pm: Johnson's line about settling relations with EU 'greeted with laughter' in Brussels
In Johnson's farewell speech, he said settling relations with the EU was one of his greatest achievements as prime minister. "That line in that speech was really greeted with laughter here; nothing is settled," FRANCE 24's Dave Keating reported from Brussels. "Johnson has done his best to make it unsettled by tearing up the Brexit divorce treaty, by tabling this legislation that would end the Northern Ireland Protocol.
"We've had really no official reaction from EU leaders today to Boris Johnson resigning but there's certainly no love lost for him," Keating continued. "The worry, though, is that almost all of the Conservative contenders to replace him could end up being even more aggressive towards the EU."
4:25pm: Johnson from Brexit to exit
Johnson rode his luck throughout his career – starting from the moment he was sacked from The Times for making up a quote as a young journalist, before getting a job as Daily Telegraph Brussels correspondent, where he first won fame by writing funny; often untrue articles about the then European Community.
Johnson rose to the top by tying his jovial persona to the inexorable rise of Tory anti-Europeanism. His biggest triumph was getting Brexit done after three years of wrangling, shortly after the December 2019 elections when he won the Conservatives' biggest victory since Margaret Thatcher's third landslide in 1987.
FRANCE 24 looks back at Johnson in his pomp and charts the course of his downfall:
4:22pm: Tory Party has 'many ways of shutting the door on Johnson'
"It's certainly true that just 24 hours ago it looked like we might see an escalating constitutional crisis that could even suck in the Queen because Johnson was refusing to give straight answers to the question of whether or not he would seek to trigger an election in order to avoid losing his job," said Robert Ford, a professor of political science at Manchester University. "It seems, like Trump, he's tested British institutions. But unlike Trump he hasn't been able to test those institutions to the point of failure. So he has accepted that he has to go. He has accepted the informal pressure of his party even though the formal confidence vote hasn't happened. But he hasn't accepted that he has to go right now, which leaves open the possibility that he tries to find some other way to wheedle out of this crisis."
The Johnson-Trump comparison is limited, Ford said: "Johnson is invoking this 14 million vote mandate. That is a nonsense under our system. We do not have direct elections for the executive as the Americans have or as the French have for the executive. Johnson has one mandate which is for the people of [his parliamentary constituency] Uxbridge and South Ruislip. The Conservative Party has the mandate. Johnson made this point repeatedly when he was looking to evict his predecessor Theresa May. So he cannot make that argument.
"And secondly, with regard to his ability to wriggle out of things, this hands a great deal more power to his party, the Conservative Party, to prevent him from doing this -- something they've now become very keen to do. Whereas in the Trump case, the problem the Republicans have is [that] a determined populist individual like Trump really can usurp a party because of the nature of a direct popularly elected executive, because of the nature of open primaries. The Conservative Party has many ways to shut the door on Boris Johnson and I wouldn't be surprised at all if we see the Conservative Party exercising many of those ways of shutting the door on Johnson in the coming weeks if he shows any intention at all of trying to back out of the deal he seems to have made with his colleagues."
2:40pm: 'The mood is that he should go now'
This is, "let's remember, yet another prime minister biting the dust after Brexit", FRANCE 24's Bénédicte Paviot reported from London. "I was here when David Cameron made his resignation speech; I was here when Theresa May was pushed out. And now we have Boris Johnson. [...] That is a historic and very painful moment, which he acknowledged himself."
"This is a man who was so combative when at PMQs, Prime Minister's Questions, yesterday -- when he faced really a grilling; really strong calls for him to stand down. Not just from the opposition benches [...] but also from his own benches. Then a 2+-hour-grilling from senior MPs, ending on integrity in politics, and being asked, 'do you think you're going to be prime minister tomorrow?' He answered 'of course', but it turns out he's prime minister but he's a caretaker prime minister and he's trying to cling on until the autumn."
"But the battle is very real," Paviot continued. "Parliament is still in session until the 22nd of July and a majority of Conservative MPs do not want Boris Johnson a moment longer as caretaker prime minister, and he's only resigned as Tory leader. And that is not good enough -- they want somebody to stop the damage that's he been doing [...] to the Conservative Party and its future prospects [...] Really, the mood is that he should go now."
2:09pm: Foreign Secretary Truss says Johnson was right to resign
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, one of the top contenders to replace Johnson, said on Twitter that he made the right decision in resigning.
"The PM has made the right decision," she said. "The government under Boris's leadership had many achievements -- delivering Brexit, vaccines and backing Ukraine. We need calmness and unity now and to keep governing while a new leader is found."
Truss is popular among the Tory electoral base, especially since she has modelled herself on the party's most influential and longest-serving modern prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. However, Truss also came under fire from many figures both inside and outside the Tory party during her tenure as Justice Secretary from 2016 to 2017, as she was accused of failing to sufficiently support the judiciary amid their heavy criticism in the media over a Brexit ruling.
1:48pm: Zelensky adviser thanks Johnson for supporting Ukraine
An adviser to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday thanked Johnson for always being at the forefront of supporting Ukraine.
Mykhailo Podolyak added in a video accompanying a Twitter post that Johnson, who said on Thursday he would quit as prime minister, was "a person who began to call a spade a spade from the beginning" of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
1:38pm: Boris Johnson will resign as British PM in the autumn
Bowing to the inevitable as more than 50 ministers quit and lawmakers said he must go, an isolated and powerless Johnson spoke outside his Downing Street to confirm he would resign.
"The process of choosing that new leader should begin now. And today I have appointed a cabinet to serve, as I will until a new leader is in place," Johnson said.
After days of battling for his job, the scandal-plagued Johnson had been deserted by all but a handful of allies after the latest in a series of scandals broke their willingness to support him.
1:29pm: PM Johnson speaking live outside of Downing Street
The embattled Prime minister has begun his statement outside Number 10 Downing Street.
12:51pm: Johnson, preparing to resign, appoints new ministers
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, expected to announce his resignation in just over an hour, started appointing new ministers to his cabinet on Thursday, including a third education secretary in three days.
Johnson, who has been forced to step down after his ministers and Conservative lawmakers quit or withdrew their support, appointed Greg Clark as 'levelling up' secretary and James Cleverly to the post of education minister.
The prime minister also appointed Michelle Donelan as minister for education, to replace Nadhim Zahawi, on Tuesday evening, but she had quit by Thursday morning, saying Johnson needed to go.
12:37pm: If Johnson won't go, we'll call a vote of confidence, says UK opposition leader Starmer
The opposition Labour Party will call a parliamentary no confidence vote in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government if his Conservative Party don't get rid of him as leader, Labour Party chief Keir Starmer said in a statement on Thursday.
11:54am: UK business minister: Conservative party needs new leader 'as soon as practicable'
British business minister Kwasi Kwarteng said the Conservative Party needed a new leader as soon as practicable, and insisted the government must continue to operate.
"We now need a new Leader as soon as practicable. Someone who can rebuild trust, heal the country, and set out a new, sensible and consistent economic approach to help families," he said on Twitter.
"The wheels of government must continue in the meantime."
11:21am: Johnson has spoken to Queen Elizabeth, ITV reports
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has spoken to Queen Elizabeth as a courtesy ahead of an impending announcement about his resignation plan, ITV Deputy Political Editor Anushka Asthana said on Thursday.
10:51am: Reactions from across the political spectrum to news of Johnson's agreement to resign
Opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer called it "good news for the country" that Johnson was going to quit.
"But it should have happened long ago. He was always unfit for office. He has been responsible for lies, scandal and fraud on an industrial scale."
"We don't need to change the Tory at the top – we need a proper change of government," Starmer said. "We need a fresh start for Britain."
Weighing in from the Conservative party, Deputy Chairman Justin Tomlinson said "I was Team Boris, as the GE (general election) showed he was our star player who connected across traditional political divides. Yes there were ups and downs, but he turbo-charged social mobility and opportunity.
"His resignation was inevitable. As a Party we must quickly unite and focus on what matters. These are serious times on many fronts."
First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon also weighed in via Twitter, questioning his continued presence as Prime Minister for the next three months. "There will be a widespread sense of relief that the chaos of the last few days (indeed months) will come to an end, though notion of Boris Johnson staying on as PM until autumn seems far from ideal, and surely not sustainable?"
10:30am: Johnson will resign as Conservative leader, BBC reports
Boris Johnson will resign as Conservative party leader on Thursday, the BBC has reported, paving the way for a successor to replace him as British prime minister, after dozens of his ministers quit the government.
"Boris Johnson will resign as Conservative leader today -- he will continue as prime minister until the autumn," BBC political editor Chris Mason reported, adding that a Tory leadership race will take place this summer and the victor replace Johnson by October.
A spokesman for 10 Downing Street said that Johnson will make a "statement to the country today".
10:13am: An unprecented situation as over 50 ministers desert government
Dozens of officials have quit and previously loyal allies are urging British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to resign. 'Are we beginning to be in a constitutional crisis? This is just one of the many serious questions that are being posed this morning', says FRANCE 24's correspondent in London, Bénédicte Paviot.
10:00am: New UK finance minister Zahawi tells PM Johnson to 'go now'
New UK finance minister Nadhim Zahawi, only appointed two days ago following the resignation of predecessor Rishi Sunak, on Thursday urged prime Minister Boris Johnson to "do the right thing and go now."
"Prime Minister, you know in your heart what the right thing to do is, and go now," he said in a statement posted on Twitter.
9:52am: UK education minister quits after two days in office
British education minister Michelle Donelan resigned from government on Thursday less than 48 hours after she was appointed, saying it was the only way to force the hand of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to quit.
"I see no way that you can continue in post, but without a formal mechanism to remove you it seems that the only way that this is... possible is for those of us who remain in Cabinet to force your hand," Donelan wrote in a resignation letter, saying she had "pleaded" with Johnson on Wednesday to resign.
"You have put us in an impossible situation... as someone who values integrity above all else, I have no choice."
9:02am: British junior culture minister resigns, calls for Johnson to go
British junior culture minister Chris Philp quit on Thursday, the latest minister to call for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to resign over a series of scandals that have dogged his administration.
8:52am: British pensions minister Opperman quits
Guy Opperman, a British junior minister who oversees pensions, resigned on Thursday, saying the unwillingness of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to quit had left him no choice.
8:17am: British security minister Hinds quits
British security minister Damian Hinds quit on Thursday, saying the country needed Prime Minister Boris Johnson to go in order to restore trust in our democracy.
"More important than any government or leader are the standards we uphold in public life and faith in our democracy and public administration," Hinds said in his resignation letter to Johnson.
"Because of the serious erosion in these, I have come to the conclusion that the right thing for our country and for our party is for you to stand down as party leader and prime minister."
7:55am: Britain's Northern Ireland minister resigns
Britain's minister for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, quit on Thursday, saying he no longer believed the values of honesty, integrity and mutual respect were being upheld by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government.
Lewis joined around 40 politicians who have quit government positions in the last two days in an effort to force Johnson out of power. Helen Whately, a junior treasury minister, also quit on Thursday.
6:29am: UK PM clinging to power as resignations pile up
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was clinging to power Thursday, having defiantly responded to calls from his loyalists to step down by sacking a minister and former top ally.
More than 40 ministers and aides, including three cabinet members, have quit the government since late Tuesday, with resignations continuing to trickle in overnight.
The Conservative leader was confronted at various points on Wednesday by members of his cabinet telling him it was time to go, local media said.
His reaction was to fire Communities Secretary Michael Gove, reportedly the first to tell him that he must resign for the good of the Tory party and country, with a source close to Johnson telling the BBC that Gove was "a snake".
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and REUTERS)
