UK prime minister Boris Johnson resigns

UK prime minister Boris Johnson resigned as leader of the ruling Conservative Party today, succumbing to a huge revolt against him from his own members of parliament (MPs). Johnson said he will stay in post as prime minister until a successor is chosen, and that a timetable for this will be announced next week.

Johnson's downfall was protracted, involving breaches of his own mandated Covid-19 restrictions, the financing of an official residence refurbishment and a slew of misconduct allegations against his own MPs among other things. The sense of crisis around his position reached critical mass this week, with the resignation of his finance minister Rishi Sunak and around 40 MPs from their government roles.

Sunak's replacement, former oil industry executive Nadhim Zahawi, today called for Johnson to quit, and the new education secretary, only appointed on 5 July, resigned.

Johnson's departure will trigger a leadership contest within the Conservative party, with the winner assuming the office of prime minister. Conservative MP Steve Baker said today that this process could be done within two weeks. The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, called for a general election, saying "we need a proper change of government".

Johnson became prime minister in 2019 and led his party to a resounding election victory that year. His key achievements were the process of extracting the UK from the EU and the country's response to Covid-19, but both played a role in his fall. Leaving the EU has been beset with problems and since leaving the bloc the UK economy has underperformed — the OECD expects the country's economy to stagnate in 2023. Johnson became the first sitting prime minister to be found to have broken the law with regard to his pandemic-lockdown breaches.

A new government will face challenges from high energy prices and the need to hit transition targets. The Johnson administration has recently implemented a temporary surcharge on offshore oil and gas firms' profits, cut road fuel taxes and has proposed a move to decouple consumer power prices from gas prices.

By Ben Winkley