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| Photo Credit: AP. |
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Thursday announced his resignation amidst turmoil following mass resignations in his cabinet. But Mr Johnson is not leaving immediately, he announced he was resigning from his role as leader of the Conservative Party and would remain in office for several weeks to allow a new Prime Minister to be chosen.
The Prime
Minister has been facing mounting pressures from members of his own party and
other MPs who accused him of breaking his own government policy on COVID-19.
The Prime Minister had attended a private birthday party in 2020 organized in
his honor at 10 Downing Street.
Earlier Mr
Johnson survived a vote of confidence by MPs who felt frustrated by his
fragrant disregard for his own lockdown rules. Johnson denied knowingly
breaking his own COVID-19 arguing at some point that he was not aware that he
was attending a party at a time many Britons were locked in their homes.
He refused
several request by MPs to resign, saying he was sorry instead. The search for a
new replacement could take up to 6 weeks.
Boris
Johnson would mostly likely be succeeded by former Health Secretary Sajid
Javid, former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, according to The Associated Press.
Mr Johnson
had faced a barrage of resignations from about 50 Cabinet secretaries,
ministers and lower-level officials. The message is simple, the Prime Minister
has lost confidence and integrity and the honest thing to do is resign.
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| Photo Credit: AP. |
Several
conservative members of the Prime Minister’s party had asked him to resign for
the good of “the country”. On Wednesday Mr Johnson was defiant, telling
parliament at Westminster that he had a “colossal mandate” from the voters and
hence would continue to go on with the business of governing, according to The
Associated Press.
New minsters
also resigned few hours after their appointment. Mr Johnson’s closest ally, who
is a newly appointed Treasury chief Nadhim Zahawi, publicly told him to resign
for the good of the country.
“In the last
few days, I tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to
change governments when we’re delivering so much and when we have such a vast
mandate,” Johnson said. “I regret not to have been successful in those
arguments, and of course it’s painful not to be able to see through so many
ideas and projects myself.”
He said 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,” adding that no one is indispensable.
Boris Johnson became prime minster in July 2019 after succeeding Theresa May who was fired from power following Parliament rejection of the Brexit agreement she negotiated with the EU. Johnson was a former Journalist and mayor of London.