Boris Johnson

The search is on for the next Conservative Party leader — and ultimately a new prime minister. This is a look at several potential candidates for the job.

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It was the resignation speech that will be forever noteworthy for its lack of a proper resignation. After more than 50 Conservative MPs resigned from ...

When chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak quit, he wrote: "The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously. After he became Prime Minister he was even accused of lying to the Queen over advice he gave to the monarch over the proroguing of parliament. Perhaps it stands to reason that a man who attended inappropriate and illegal parties wouldn't know when his own was over and that the time to leave had well and truly arrived. The truth was that the Prime Minister had been briefed about the initiation and outcome of an investigation into Pincher in 2019. As a young journalist working at The Times in 1988 he lost his job after he made up a quote that was attributed to his godfather, Colin Lucas, an Oxford academic. When Johnson was elected leader in 2019, his parliamentary peers knew he had a history of not telling the truth. Lord Geidt, who was his ethics adviser at the time of "partygate", quit after he said the Prime Minister had put him in an "impossible and odious situation". The perception that Boris Johnson lied to parliament over what he knew about the lockdown parties and whether he attended any of them continued to erode the Prime Minister's authority. "Them's the breaks," Johnson said in his speech outside Downing Street, as if he was a victim of random acts of misfortune. And it was one last dose of Johnsonian chaos to remind his colleagues of the character of the man they had tied their fortunes to when they elected him party leader back in July 2019. The police investigation into a series of lockdown parties in and around Downing Street led to Johnson receiving a fixed penalty notice for breaching the COVID laws his own government had introduced. As he addressed the nation, Johnson said the timetable for choosing a new leader would be announced next week and that, strangely, his new cabinet — only formed because so few of his parliamentary peers could hold their noses and continue to serve with him — would get back to the business of governing.

There's no way he will survive this,” said Lord Heseltine, the grand old man of Britain's ruling Conservative Party. He was talking about Prime Minister Boris ...

He lies frequently, and he clearly has the sociopath’s ability to sincerely believe his own lie as soon as he says it. The rules of the 1922 Committee, all the Conservative MPs in solemn conclave, say that if the leader survives a leadership challenge, there cannot be another one for a year. But his lies often fall apart within days, hours or even moments of being uttered; he just doesn’t bother to calculate the probability that they will not be believed. He survived a confidence vote by his own Conservative MPs last month, but 41 per cent of them voted to depose him as party leader (and therefore prime minister). And it turned out to be the last straw. This is the behaviour of a sociopath (or perhaps a psychopath – the words are used interchangeably in popular discourse). It refers to people who are usually male, intelligent and charming. But there was to be an election for the committee’s executive next week, and a new executive could have changed that rule if they wished. Since 2017, Pincher has been repeatedly accused of physically molesting younger men, including Conservative members of parliament, but no action was taken against him and Johnson ignored the warnings. They included two of the most senior ministers in Johnson’s cabinet, Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Rishi Sunak and health minister Sajid Javid, who quit upon hearing Johnson’s latest lies. After he made Pincher deputy chief whip in parliament in February, however, further complaints about Pincher’s behaviour were made – and Johnson immediately said that he had never been warned about him. And on Thursday, Johnson has finally bowed to the inevitable. It was the incessant, instinctive, stupid lies.

Friday: UK prime minister announces resignation, but will stay on until Conservative party finds replacement. Plus: Nick Kyrgios through to first Wimbledon ...

Jonathan Freedland and Jill Filipovic discuss whether it’s still possible for a deeply divided court of nine judges, a group that now has a 6-3 conservative majority, to keep the promise to the American people of ‘equal protection’, and what happens if it can’t. “Trying to change someone is a recipe for frustration,” says advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. “Stop hoping for change and you could find a renaissance within your friendship.” In a statement outside Downing Street, Johnson acknowledged that “no one is remotely indispensable” and accepted that it was the “will of the parliamentary Conservative party” that he should leave No 10. A Toronto woman who was set on fire last month on a public bus in a suspected hate crime has died of her injuries, police say. Meanwhile the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has flown into Bali for the gathering of G20 foreign ministers, which is likely to be overshadowed by Moscow’s war in Ukraine and deep divisions within the bloc over how to respond to the crisis. Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, will meet her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Bali on Friday in a direct conversation that is a further sign of thawing relations between Canberra and Beijing after a diplomatic deep freeze.

Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, announced on Thursday that he would be stepping down as leader of the ruling Conservatives in the face of a torrent of ...

Johnson is the third Conservative leader to have been forced out of office by his own party in the past seven years. But some Conservative MPs say Johnson should be replaced immediately rather than be allowed to remain as a caretaker leader until a successor is found. For now at least, Johnson is still the British prime minister. For now he is still prime minister, but his resignation triggers a contest to replace him as head of his party. Pressure began to build after four more allegations were reported in the Sunday papers, including accusations that he had groped two Conservative MPs. Pincher has denied the allegations. The prime minister said he had forgotten.

EU leaders have been critical of his handling of Brexit; but he is praised for his stance on Russia.

More preoccupied with playing to the political gallery back home, than fulfilling international obligations or acting consistently in (what the EU assumes to be) the best interests of the UK. "And all this, with war back here on our continent," he added. In particular, over the post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland. That's less down to the EU dislike of Brexit itself, which certainly exists. It was one of the many scandals that have now resulted in him being politically forced from office. He was also accused of tolerating and attending boozy gatherings at Downing Street during the strict Covid-19 lockdown.

The prime minister's fake populism led to his undoing—and will keep haunting his country.

Because we are talking about Westminster, not Washington, it’s extremely unlikely, indeed unimaginable, that Johnson will now stage a coup, encourage a violent march on the House of Commons, or support the public hanging of the chancellor of the exchequer. If Britain follows the pattern of other countries, then the failure of Tory populism might not lead the public back to some kind of predictable centrism. No one will claim that Brexit is the reason the Conservative Party has just lost two by-elections and crowds at the Queen’s jubilee service booed Johnson when he arrived at the church. Partly because the role of Russian money and influence in the Brexit campaign has never been fully explained. Not too long ago, I heard one of the leading Brexiteers describe his political philosophy in a room full of CEOs and senior politicians. The energizing slogans of the Brexit campaign of 2016 sounded hollow and clichéd in 2022.

The party created a monster. It should not underestimate how hard it will be to stop him, even after he's prised from power, says Guardian columnist Gaby ...

So far, he has stopped short of attempting to mobilise the deranged strand of rightwing populism that constantly fears its Brexit is about to be stolen in some deep state Remainer plot. In his final hours he was visibly positioning himself to go full Trump, arguing that he was the people’s choice and only they can fire him. Even in his final hours he conceded that as foreign secretary he had met the former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev, the father of his friend (and the then owner of the Evening Standard) Evgeny Lebedev, without officials present in Italy at a time of high tensions with Moscow. This is the man we want to leave in charge of national security over summer? Convention may dictate that a prime minister who loses a vote of confidence carries on running the country, for the sake of continuity, until a successor is chosen. It should apologise for choosing a leader it knew to be a lightweight and a liar, who broke the law by partying through lockdown yet still reportedly thinks it appropriate to stage one last bash at Chequers on his way out. Johnson degraded the country he was elected to serve, and his legacy will be long painful years of fixing the damage done to almost every aspect of national life.

The scandal-plagued British prime minister never secured total control over his party. President Donald Trump sits next to British Prime Minister Boris ...

Some think he will try to make a series of announcements to regain popularity in the delusional hope of turning things around. (Of course, even a written constitution is not enough to constrain a U.S. president rampaging through norms if he wants to.) So there remains a risk he will try to exploit the lack of rules to his benefit. The race to succeed Johnson is wide open, with the party’s MPs divided between those who want a more traditional candidate — fiscally conservative, hawkish on foreign policy, and socially liberal — and those who want a populist choice to appeal to the more authoritarian voters who switched to them over Brexit. The current favorite is Ben Wallace, the Defence secretary widely seen as having done well over Ukraine, and a potential party unifier. With the next general election less than two years way, they will have little time to clean up the mess. Eventually 60 members of the government resigned before he could be brought to accept the inevitable, including some cabinet ministers he’d appointed to replace those who’d left in the first wave of resignations. Then his inability to tell the truth led to a string of scandals, most notably over parties held at his residence in Downing Street, while the rest of the country was in Covid lockdown. And here is where Johnson’s fate took a turn, and why he was more vulnerable to a mutiny from his party than another scandal-prone leader, Donald Trump. The differences in presidential and parliamentary systems are obviously a major reason. For instance, some MPs still think he may try to call a general election, even though the party doesn’t want one. By February, it looked as if Johnson was done, but the war in Ukraine intervened and politics, briefly, took a back seat. But he was the only Member of Parliament (MP) who had both campaigned for Brexit and was reasonably popular with potential Conservative voters. In the U.S., other identities — including racial and religious ones — have aligned with party affiliation creating a powerful driver of polarization. The hope was that he would accept being a charismatic frontman while some sensible grown-ups made the decisions.

Well, at least Boris Johnson's tenure as UK prime minister lasted longer than Neville Chamberlain's. So he's got that going for him, we guess. Johnson resigned ...

Every major sector of the economy is going in reverse, according to the Office for National Statistics. Oh, and it's going to get worse: The UK economic outlook has "deteriorated materially," the Bank of England said. In fact, it caused the United Kingdom to miss much of the recovery in global trade since the pandemic, according to a March report from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the government's fiscal watchdog. Hard to believe, but even at a third of its all-time high, GameStop may still be a bit pricey for individual investors. The stock is down about 14% this year, mirroring the broader market sell off. The stock plunged earlier this year, although it has battled back a bit recently, my colleague Jordan Valinsky notes. So, yeah, the scandals weren't great for Johnson. But political leaders all over the globe are facing immense pressure because of inflation. The company's board Wednesday approved a 4-for-1 stock split, effective July 22. Johnson's scandals were the last straw for a prime minister already on paper-thin ice. But why is the UK economy so much worse off than its peers? Leaving the European Union: - Hasn't boosted trade as Johnson and other Brexit advocates promised.

London: A mass of resignations within British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government finally prompted his resignation after a turbulent stint in the top ...

More than 50 members of Johnson’s government resign in three days, prompting him to announce his resignation. His head of policy quits, saying the Savile barb was a “scurrilous accusation”. Johnson admits he attended a gathering in the Downing Street garden on May 20, 2020 but believed it to be a work event. Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Johnson apologises for the video, saying he is furious. Gray publishes a limited report, curtailed by the ongoing police investigation.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson watched by wife Carrie Johnson reads a statement outside 10 Downing Street. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, watched by wife Carrie ...

This group represented, he said to laughter across the House of Commons, “the charge of the lightweight brigade.” Some are self-styled “Brexit Spartans,” who never once saw fit to vote for the kind of agreement with the European Union that would prevent the country’s economy falling off a cliff. Many of Johnson’s political opponents, as well as a fair few of his fellow Conservatives, seem keen to turf him out of office lickety-split, in the next few days, rather than weeks or months. In a measure of the current absurdity, Michelle Donelan, a woman who has wanted to be a politician since she was six years old, accepted from Johnson the important job as the U.K.’s new education secretary on Tuesday night. In the coming days, a small cabal of rules nerds will essentially self-select from among the 350 or so Conservative lawmakers in Britain’s lower chamber, the House of Commons. By early next week, this group—known as the 1922 committee—is expected to confirm a set of rules to govern the leadership contest that will select Johnson’s successor. As he battles to retain relevance, polish a very tarnished legacy, and otherwise avoid abject ignominy, the challenge now for his Conservative Party, U.K. politics, and weary members of the British public is to understand who—and what—may come next.

Boris Johnson announced his resignation after he accepted that he no longer had the support of his party. Jonathan Freedland describes a man brought down by ...

Now, there are calls for him not to merely announce his departure but to clear off the stage completely and let an interim PM begin to repair the damage of the Johnson era. But as Jonathan Freedland tells Nosheen Iqbal, his short time in office was marked by scandal and crisis in nearly equal measure. Jonathan Freedland describes a man brought down by his own failings

London: Max Hastings, a legendary British newspaper editor and Boris Johnson's former boss, was seemingly on to something when he predicted Johnson's ...

On April 12, after months of speculation and building evidence against the prime minister, Johnson was fined £50 by police for attending his own birthday party in May 2020. And so the prime minister went against a howl of public disgust and stuck by his man. In November last year, he demanded his party vote against the suspension of fellow Brexiteer and former cabinet minister Owen Paterson, who had breached rules on paid lobbying. None of these incidents merited so much as a mention in Johnson’s resignation speech on Thursday evening (AEST), but that came as no shock to his colleagues. Perhaps, one day, those on the progressive side of politics will recognise that he played a pivotal part in getting the world’s richest nations talking about decarbonisation as an economic issue. For someone who had declared at the age of eight that he wanted to become “world king”, it should not have come as a surprise. Within a month COVID-19 hit, and he found himself contemplating health restrictions that went against his libertarian instincts. He can, however, claim to be the most consequential British politician of his generation. His rallying cries of “Take Back Control” and “Get Brexit Done” were effective at motivating those reluctant to vote. He has continued to famously divert questions about his family and personal life, especially during the election campaign in 2019. Of course, he was not Donald Trump. Nowhere near it. “Dignity still matters in public office, and Johnson will never have it.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will step down as leader of the Conservative Party but remain as caretaker PM until a new leader is chosen, ...

Mr Kwarteng, the Member for Spelthorne, said Britain needed a leader who could "heal the country" after almost three years of Mr Johnson as Prime Minister. But Mr Johnson is facing a battle to remain in the caretaker role until a new leader is chosen, with opposition parties and even some within the Conservative Party calling on him to be replaced immediately. "It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister," Mr Johnson said from outside the front of Number 10 Downing Street. Mr Zahawi — who was appointed by Mr Johnson to his role on Tuesday night — told the Prime Minister that staying in power was "not sustainable" for the country. Mr Johnson could remain as caretaker Prime Minister for several months, until a new leader is chosen before the party conference in October. He will step down as leader of the Conservative Party but remain as caretaker Prime Minister until a new leader is chosen.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned. His government utterly imploded after mass resignations. Ollie Gillman in London. 7 min read.

This morning he gave The Queen a “courtesy call” to let her know of his intention to quit. In hindsight it was the wrong thing to do,” Mr Johnson said. You must do the right thing and go now,” he wrote. Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab filled in as PM when Mr Johnson was fighting for life in hospital with Covid. He is seen as a safe pair of hands, but some members feel he lacks the charisma to lead the party to an election victory. “I apologise to everybody who has been badly affected by it. He became the first Prime Minister to have been found to have committed a crime while in office earlier this year as he was fined for attending a party in Downing Street during lockdown. It’s self-inflicted. Will Walden, a former Johnson spokesman, described the situation as a “total farce”, and said his sacking of senior government minister Michael Gove on Wednesday for telling the PM to resign was “pathetic”. The latest scandal to befall Mr Johnson was just another in a long list of difficulties that he has overcome since his landslide election victory in 2019. Mr Starmer said if the Conservatives don’t get rid of Mr Johnson, “Labour will step up and bring a vote of no confidence because we can’t go on with the Prime Minister clinging on for months and months to come”. Prime Minister’s Questions descended into farce on Wednesday as he vowed to “keep going” in the job, bringing a chorus of laughter from the Opposition, as well as from some on his own benches. “It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new Prime Minister,” he said outside 10 Downing Street.

The prime minister is variously thanked for this time in office and urged to be gone as soon as possible in today's front pages.

“Kiss goodbye”, the headline reads, adding below “… and thanks for Brexit”. “Thank you Boris … you gave Britain back its freedom” the splash headline says. “Clinging on for one last party” the headline says.

Johnson will remain prime minister until a new party leader is chosen - which could take months.

But for this to happen, there must still be a vacancy in the office to fill. In such cases, another minister would fulfil any necessary functions of the prime minister in an acting capacity. The issue of filling a temporary vacancy in the prime ministership has more commonly arisen when a prime minister has died suddenly while in office. Some have suggested that the current UK Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, might be a contender for the party leadership, while others have suggested he has ruled himself out. Typically, this is the leader of the political party that holds a Commons majority. Or we will see ministers who have previously resigned due to their lack of confidence in the prime minister returning to office to serve for months under a man they don’t trust or respect.

Johnson resigned as Conservative Party leader on Thursday, finally bowing to immense political pressure after an unprecedented flood of government ...

"Starmer's failure to build a bigger cushion while the Tories were in turmoil under Johnson may return to haunt him. "Policy on Ukraine itself will not change after Johnson's departure; his successor will want to remain the country's staunchest ally. These include balancing day-to-day spending with revenue — with borrowing allowed only for capital projects — and see debt lower by the end of the five-year parliament. These conditions are designed to prevent too long a list. However, other Tory lawmakers insist replacing Johnson could create even more instability, arguing that Johnson should remain in post over the summer period. Sunak followed with 10% and Truss got 8%.

As many as a dozen candidates are eyeing up replacing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is quitting...

But in his speech to the country announcing his exit, he did not use the word "resign" or "resignation", and described his forced departure as "eccentric". In the meantime, Johnson, brought down by a series scandals and a loss of trust in his integrity, remains in the job, a situation that opponents, and many in his own party, say is untenable. Johnson told his cabinet of top ministers - some of whom were appointed after the announcement he would be resigning - that he would not be making any big changes of direction that would tie the hands of his successor.

Boris Johnson, who has announced his resignation as Britain's prime minister, will remain in power until a successor...

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Most in Brussels believe the UK PM's successor will further pursue plans to unilaterally amend the post-Brexit trade deal Boris Johnson once signed.

The betrayal poisoned the atmosphere with Brussels. “We signed with the same people. That would allow us to focus on the boring and highly technical task of agreeing how to administer the Northern Ireland border. “There is no one else like him in British politics. That meant keeping Northern Ireland in the EU single market for goods while Great Britain left. But most in Brussels believe his successor will continue with plans to unilaterally amend the post-Brexit trade deal he signed. Several diplomats questioned whether any contender for the Conservative leadership would dare drop a policy popular with the MPs whose support they must win.