The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson has resigned following years of scandals involving his leadership in which he was accused of continually lying and covering up wrongdoing within his own party.
The PM had tried to hold onto his job but was forced to leave after mass resignations from his cabinet, and after opinion polls showing the popularity of his ruling Conservative party had declined rapidly.
The major scandal involved the revelations that he was involved with parties within 10 Downing Street while the UK was under Covid-19 lockdown measures, in which he and others drank alcohol to excess.
In his resignation speech, Johnson attempted to dodge responsibility for his own downfall and heralded his 'successes' but accepted the time had come for him to move on. 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. So I want to say to the millions of people who voted for us in 2019, many of them voting Conservative for the first time, thank you for that incredible mandate, the biggest Conservative majority since 1987, the biggest share of the vote since 1979."
Continuing:
"And of course, I'm immensely proud of the achievements of this government, from getting Brexit done to settling our relations with the Continent for over half a century, reclaiming the power for this country to make its own laws in Parliament, getting us all through the pandemic, delivering the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe, the fastest exit from lockdown, and in the last few months, leading the West in standing up to Putin's aggression in Ukraine."
Adding:
"And 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 and when we're actually only a handful of points behind in the polls, even in mid-term, after quite a few months of pretty relentless sledging and when the economic scene is so difficult domestically and internationally. And 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. But as we've seen at Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves."
Ben Wallace, the current Defence Secretary, is believed to be the favourite to become Prime Minister, a vote that will involve the entire membership of the Conservative party.
[Based on reporting by: BBC]
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