Johnson clings on as clamour for resignation continues to grows

LONDON – Cabinet ministers gathered in Boris Johnson’s official residence on Wednesday to tell him to quit as British leader, after he insisted he would not stand down in the face of a mounting rebellion within his party.

With more than 30 government resignations and many lawmakers in his Conservative Party in open revolt, some senior ministers were in Downing Street to tell the prime minister he needed to go, a source said. At least one was there to back him if he decided to fight on, another source said.

Despite the clamour for him to resign, Johnson said he had a mandate from the 2019 national election, which he won with a large majority, to plough on.

“I am not going to step down and the last thing this country needs, frankly, is an election,” he told a parliamentary committee, refusing to answer whether he would try to stay in the job even if he lost a confidence vote from his own lawmakers.

The dramatic resignations on Tuesday evening of his health and finance ministers triggered a growing swell of other ministerial departures, while many Conservative lawmakers openly said they wanted him gone, questioning his fitness to govern and his integrity.

At parliamentary questions on Wednesday some Conservatives struggled not to laugh when others poked fun at him and he took a pummelling from a committee of senior politicians over his past behaviour, his motivation and some of the scandals that have come to define much of his tenure.

The ebullient Johnson came to power nearly three years ago, promising to deliver Britain’s exit from the European Union and rescue it from the bitter wrangling that followed the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Some Conservatives enthusiastically backed him while others were happy to support him despite reservations about the former journalist and London mayor because he was able to appeal to parts of the electorate that usually rejected their party.

That was borne out in the December 2019 election. But his administration’s combative and often chaotic approach to governing and a series of scandals have exhausted the goodwill of many of his lawmakers while opinion polls show he is no longer popular with the public at large.