Boris Johnson wants to step down as Prime Minister as the government collapses
Sterling bounces on news of Tory boss's resignation after days of chaos and resignations
Boris Johnson is due to step down as Britain's Prime Minister on Thursday after more than 50 members of his government resigned over the past two days, undermining his political authority.
Two senior government officials told the Financial Times Johnson is expected to make a statement at noon announcing he will remain as acting prime minister until the Conservative Party conference in October.
"The Prime Minister will make a statement to the country today," said a spokesman for Number 10.
Johnson spoke at 8.30am with Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of Backbenchers, at which the Prime Minister said he had decided it was in the interests of the party and the country that he should resign.
The pound rose 0.5% against the dollar from $1.193 to a high of $1.199 as investors reacted positively to Johnson's expected resignation.
Johnson's decision to resign marks the end of a political career in which he led the successful Vote Leave campaign to leave the EU in 2016 and led the Conservative Party to a historic 2019 election victory.
The final straw seemed to have come on Thursday morning when his newly appointed chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, asked him to resign.
"Prime Minister, you know in your heart what is right and now go," Zahawi wrote. "The country deserves a government that is not only stable but also acts with integrity."
Zahawi only became Chancellor on Tuesday evening - just a few hours after the resignation of his predecessor Rishi Sunak.
His comments made him the second Secretary to publicly call for Johnson's resignation while in office. Attorney General Suella Braverman also called on the prime minister to step down as the number of government resignations continued to mount. More than 50 members of the government resigned this week.
Brandon Lewis, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and once a staunch Johnson supporter, said Thursday morning that he was stepping down and that the government would no longer be run on the basis of "honesty, integrity and mutual respect".
Michelle Donelan, who replaced Zahawi as education secretary on Tuesday night, also resigned. "I see no way that you can remain in office, but without a formal mechanism to remove you, it seems the only way to do that is for those of us who remain in Cabinet to elect you to do so force," she wrote.
Lewis was among a group of loyal ministers who on Wednesday urged Johnson to step down gracefully as parliamentary support dwindles and his government falls apart.
Johnson replied that he had a "mandate" from the British people and refused to give up. He sacked Michael Gove, one of the senior ministers who had advised him to resign; a Number 10 staffer called Gove "a snake".
Lewis was the fourth minister to resign from Johnson's cabinet. Guy Opperman, Minister for Pensions, and Helen Whately, Minister for Treasury, also resigned on Thursday; she said, "There's only a certain number of times you can apologize and move on".
Damian Hinds, Secretary of State for Security, resigned just after 7am while George Freeman, Secretary of Science, resigned shortly after and "the chaos at No 10, the collapse of Cabinet collective responsibility, the abandonment of the Ministerial Code and the Defence of inappropriateness".
Whitehall insiders said Johnson has struggled to fill the vacancies.
Bernard Jenkin, a leading Brexit supporter, said Thursday Johnson should not behave like Donald Trump in the final days of his tenure.
Johnson told cabinet ministers on Wednesday that he won a direct mandate from nearly 14 million voters in the 2019 election, suggesting he does not derive his power from his majority in the lower house.
Reacting to the news of the resignation, Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer said Johnson had "always been unfit for office", but added: "We don't need to replace the Tories at the top - we need a real change of government ."