UK’s Boris Johnson on the brink as top ministers quit
- Boris Johnson’s government rocked by the shock departures of two senior ministers, Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid
- Anger at Johnson has been building in the ruling Conservative Party for months scandals and missteps
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was clinging to power on Wednesday, gravely wounded by the resignation of ministers who said he was not fit to govern and with a growing number of lawmakers calling for him to go.
Johnson’s finance and health secretaries quit on Tuesday, along with several in more junior roles, saying they could no longer stay in government after the latest in a series of scandals blighted his administration.
With mounting calls for Johnson to quit, he showed his determination to stay in office by appointing businessman and education minister Nadhim Zahawi as his new finance minister, and filling some of the other vacancies.
“I suspect we will have to drag him kicking and screaming from Downing Street,” one Conservative lawmaker told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But if we have to do it that way then we will.”
The level of hostility Johnson faces within his party will be laid bare later on Wednesday when he appears in parliament for his weekly question session, and before the chairs of select committees for a scheduled two-hour grilling.
Johnson, a former journalist and London mayor who became the face of Britain’s departure from the European Union, won a landslide election victory in 2019 before taking a combative and often chaotic approach to governing.