By Bola Olajuwon (The Nation)
His head was bloody, yet unbowed in spite of serious pressure from his party leaders, cabinet members and the public, the Prime Minister vowed not to quit.
But yesterday morning the die was cast.
The embattled prime minister said he was “sad to give up best job in the world”.
He took the final decision to step aside at 8.30am yesterday after more than 50 members of parliament (MPs), many of them his loyalists, quit the cabinet.
He wrote in his resignation speech: “I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world…
“It is clearly the will of the parliamentary Conservative party that there should be a new leader of that party, and therefore a new prime minister.”
Before his resignation, a source in No 10 Downing Street said: “There were tears when he admitted the game was up this morning (yesterday). Yesterday (on Tuesday), there were things that looked possible… but we’d tried everything.”
The source said the PM was ‘mainly alone’ as he wrote the resignation statement then he sent aides out into the street to wait while he prepared himself to deliver it.
“Before the speech, you always want a few minutes by yourself,” the source said.
The PM then strode to the podium in Downing Street and revealed he would step down. His emotional wife, who had their baby girl in a sling and his staff, were among those who gathered to watch the resignation speech yards away.
Around 20 MPs were also outside the street, clapping and cheering as he finished his speech less than three years after he won a landslide general election victory.
His sins
A culture of scandal has dogged Johnson for months, including lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street. He only narrowly survived a no-confidence vote among Conservative MPs a month ago.
The last straw
The indication that he was in the last hours of his tenure was when no fewer than 35 British cabinet ministers and ministerial aides tendered their resignations within 24 hours (Tuesday and Wednesday). Conservative MPs called on Johnson to go.
The exodus was triggered on Tuesday after the prime minister admitted that it was a “mistake” to keep Chris Pincher in government roles despite sexual misconduct allegations against him.
It started with the shock resignation of Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak on Tuesday evening and continued to snowball since then.
Conservative Party Vice Chair Bim Afolami and Solicitor-General Alex Chalk also resigned on Tuesday.
By Wednesday afternoon, at least 13 junior ministers, two trade envoys, and 15 parliamentary private secretaries had handed in their resignation letters.
Pincher, MP for Tamworth, resigned from the whips’ office and had his Conservative Party membership suspended last week over the alleged groping of two male guests at a Conservative Party private members’ club on June 29.
The allegations put Downing Street under pressure to explain why Pincher, who had resigned as a junior whip in November 2017 following a complaint that he made an unwanted pass at the former Olympic rower and Conservative candidate Alex Story, was given the job of deputy chief whip in February, this year.
Downing Street said last week that Johnson wasn’t aware of any formal complaints against Pincher, only to admit this week that the prime minister was told about an investigation and had forgotten about it, triggering the mass resignation.
It was a major blow to Johnson, who narrowly survived a vote of confidence last month that saw 41 percent of Conservative MPs voting to oust him.
Lawmakers on Wednesday demanded Johnson’s resignation during Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament, with a number of Conservative MPs who backed the PM last month, saying they no longer have confidence in him.
Surprisingly, Johnson cited “being frustrated in our desire to support the Ukrainian people” as a possible scenario in which he may resign, but vowed to “keep going”.
“If there were circumstances in which I felt it was impossible for the government to go on and discharge the mandate that we’ve been given, or if I felt, for instance, that we’re being frustrated in our desire to support the Ukrainian people,” Johnson told Parliament.
“But frankly, Mr. Speaker, the job of a prime minister in difficult circumstances, when he’s been handed a colossal mandate, is to keep going. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
Johnson meets with new cabinet after resignation
Johnson yesterday chaired a meeting of his new cabinet hours after announcing his resignation as Conservative Party leader.
Kicking off his tenure as caretaker prime minister until a replacement is found, Johnson welcomed his reshuffled team to the Cabinet Office in the afternoon to set out his agenda going forwards.
In a tweet afterwards to Britons, he said: “I want you to know that from now until my successor is in place, your interests will be served and the government of the country will be carried on”.