- Camilla Tominey: Why the Boris show will go on
- Jeremy Hunt endorses Rishi Sunak
- Boris Johnson's Tory leadership statement in full
- Steve Baker joins the 'big beasts' ready for Rishi
- In full: Rishi Sunak's leadership announcement
- Join our Telegraph Politics WhatsApp group
Boris Johnson has dramatically pulled out the race for 10 Downing Street after admitting he cannot unite the warring Conservative Party.
But Penny Mordaunt - Rishi Sunak's only remaining rival in the race to become the next prime minister - signalled she would not withdraw from the process.
Mr Johnson had the public support of 59 MPs but required 100 to continue in the contest.
The race is now wide open for Mr Sunak, the former chancellor, who has more than 140 Tory MPs backing him. Ms Mordaunt lags behind with the public support of 26.
Mr Johnson said he had "reached out" to leadership rivals Mr Sunak and Ms Mordaunt to see if they could work together in the national interest, but it had not proved possible.
In a statement, he insisted he had secured the 100 nominations needed to get onto the ballot paper - and that if he stood there was a "very good chance" he would be back in Downing Street by the end of the week.
He went on: "But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can't govern effectively unless you have a united party in Parliament.
"And though I have reached out to both Rishi and Penny - because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest - we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.
"Therefore I am afraid the best thing is that I do not allow my nomination to go forward and commit my support to whoever succeeds."
While Mr Sunak is now the clear favourite, a source from Penny Mordaunt's campaign said: she was "still running" for leader.
"Penny is the unifying candidate who is most likely to keep the wings of the Conservative Party together and polling shows that she is the most likely candidate to hold onto the seats the Conservative Party gained in 2019," they said.
"Ed Balls, shadow cabinet ministers and Labour advisers have all said Penny is the candidate Keir Starmer fears most."
Mr Sunak said he would always be "grateful" to Mr Johnson over Brexit, the vaccine rollout and the response to Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, adding: "Although he has decided not to run for PM again, I truly hope he continues to contribute to public life at home and abroad."
