I'm actually surprised that he has resigned (but apparently not left) and wonder if its misdirection as he plots a way back in. If there's a lesson that the last years have taught politicians, it seems to be that if you just violate norms, never admit defeat, and never back down and just ride things out, you can get away with an awful lot.<p>Edit to add an interesting article about who might replace him: <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/06/uk-prime-minister-johnson-resignation-conservative-party" rel="nofollow">https://www.axios.com/2022/07/06/uk-prime-minister-johnson-r...</a>
For those wondering why: Johnson has faced mass resignations from his cabinet in recent days.<p>There is no one event that triggered this. The resignation letters don't mention any specific event. Rather, it was a constant flow of scandals and poor decisions that caused his party to lose confidence in him, starting primarily with "partygate" in which it was revealed that senior members of the Government and No 10 were repeatedly ignoring their own COVID regulations often for trivial reasons like holding parties, at a time when theoretically people weren't allowed out of their own homes. He apologized but the damage done was extraordinary. Then the Tories lost safe seats in by-elections due to tactical voting, there were some other scandals of the type that are common in politics, and it all added up to too much. Johnson is no longer seen as a vote winner but rather a vote loser. Since partygate it was all downhill for him, especially as he kept sending his cabinet ministers to defend him on news programmes, often with them discovering they were repeating lies he'd told them, sometimes whilst literally live on TV.<p>In resigning, or rather being forced to resign, British politics and the Conservative party is at least showing that these sorts of acts ultimately do have consequences in the UK, even for someone who goes kicking and screaming like Boris. In this, the country is doing better than most places. Leaders telling people about the importance of lockdowns whilst simultaneously flouting the rules became an epidemic all by itself in the past few years. The same thing has happened in many parts of the world, and probably many more where they didn't get caught. Even Prof Neil Ferguson - the architect of lockdowns - was <i>immediately</i> caught ignoring the rules in order to visit his married lover.<p>It says a lot about the quality of leadership and 'expertise' our society is afflicted with, that nobody stopped to think about how effectively fanatical and unreasonable rules could actually be enforced on the people creating them, and what would happen when that failed. Johnson's fall is the perhaps inevitable consequence of what started in March 2020.
Resigns as leader of the Conservative Party, not (yet) as Prime Minister. He's hoping to extend his term to the autumn, while the internal party election to replace him goes on. It's not clear he has the support to do so.<p>In the meantime, he keeps control of the Parliamentary agenda, control of nuclear weapons, his salary etc.
Misleading title as he is still, currently, the Prime Minister of the UK. It's theoretically possible for him to stay on as Prime Minister even without being party leader, which is what he resigned from.<p>Though it would be quite a wild, and probably unprecedented, way of staying in office. Because it undermines the cohesion and legitimacy of the Conservative party itself.
The final straw apparently: pincher scandal<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62054067" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62054067</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Pincher_scandal" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Pincher_scandal</a>
Not a huge fan of him but Brits needed him to get the toxic wart that brexit brought on itself dealt with. He did a good job with the negotiation for UK. And Covid vaccination too. Credits where it’s due.<p>I doubt Brits will have a better leader though. Michael Gove is a far worse candidate than BoJo. Or Sajid or Rishi even I would argue. It’s probably once of the latter twos. And their labor party is just as bad with messaging. There is an epidemic of leadership crisis facing Europe (or the whole Western Hemisphere) and this is all in the face of the growing threat of WWIII. Not good.