By Olayiwola Balogun – The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has finally resigned from his position. His resignation will pave the way for a successor to replace him as British prime minister after over 50 ministers quit his government.
Following his resignation, the chance of Britain producing first ethnic minority Conservative leader and Prime Minister is more than likely.
On Tuesday, July 5, 2022, former Health Secretary Sajid Javid resigned his position. In 2019, he was among the final four candidates to replace Theresa May, but eventually dropped out and backed Boris Johnson.
Sajid Javid MP comes from humble beginnings as the son of a bus driver who moved to England from Pakistan in the 1960s. He has worked his way up in politics, having held roles in housing, business and culture before becoming chancellor.
Rishi Sunak also resigned from his role as chancellor. The senior minister led the hugely successful furlough scheme following thousands of Brits struggling amid the Covid outbreak in 2020.
In his speech, Johnson said his resignation was “clearly now the will of the parliamentary party”, adding that the move will pave way for a new prime minister to replace him.
According to him, “I waited so long to make the decision as I have been keen to deliver on the voters’ mandate in person as I felt it was my duty and obligation to do what I had promised”.
Johnson said he was immensely proud of his achievements while in office, he thanked his wife Carrie, his children, the NHS, armed forces, and Downing Street staff.
In his resignation speech, PM Boris Johnson said, “It is now clearly the will of the parliamentary conservative party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new Prime Minister and I have agreed with Sir Graham Bradythe chairman of our backbench MPs that the process of choosing that new leader should begin now and the timetable will be announced next week and I have today appointed a cabinet to serve – as I will – until a new leader is in place.
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 and the reason I have fought so hard for the last few days to continue to deliver that mandate in person was not just because I wanted to do so. But because I felt it was my job, my duty, my obligation to you to continue to do what we promised in 2019 and of course I am immensely proud of the achievements of this government.
From getting Brexit done and settling our relations with the continent after 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 and let me say now to the people of Ukraine that I know that we in the UK will continue to back your fight for freedom for as long as it takes and at the same time in this country we have at the same time been pushing forward a vast programme of investment in infrastructure, skills and technology the biggest for a century because if I have one insight into human beings.
It is that genius and talent and enthusiasm and imagination are evenly distributed throughout the population but opportunity is not and that is why we need to keep levelling up keep unleashing the potential of every part of the United Kingdom and if we can do that in this country, we will be the most prosperous in Europe and in the last few days I have tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we are delivering so much.
And when we have such a vast mandate and when we are actually only a handful of points behind in the polls even in mid term after quite a few months of pretty unrelenting 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 is painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself but as we’ve seen at Westminster, the herd is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves and my friends in politics no one is remotely indispensable.
And our brilliant and Darwinian system will produce another leader equally committed to taking this country forward through tough times, not just helping families to get through it but changing and improving our systems, cutting burdens on businesses and families and – yes – cutting taxes because that is the way to generate the growth and the income we need to pay for great public services and to that new leader I say, whoever he or she may be, I will give you as much support as I can and to you the British people I know that there will be many who are relieved but perhaps quite a few who will be disappointed and I want you to know how sad I am to give up the best job in the world but them’s the breaks.
I want to thank Carrie and our children, to all the members of my family who have had to put up with so much for so long.
I want to thank the peerless British civil service for all the help and support that you have given.
Our police, our emergency services and of course our NHS who at a critical moment helped to extend my own period in office as well as our armed services and our agencies that are so admired around the world.
I want to thank the wonderful staff here at Number Ten and of course at chequers and our fantastic protforce detectives – the one group, by the way, who never leak and above all I want to thank you the British public for the immense privilege you have given me.
And I want you to know that from now until the new Prime Minister is in place, your interests will be served and the government of the country will be carried on.
Being Prime Minister is an education in itself. I have travelled to every part of the United Kingdom and in addition to the beauty of our natural world.
I have found so many people possessed of such boundless British originality and so willing to tackle old problems in new ways that I know that even if things can sometimes seem dark now, our future together is golden”.
The prime minister’s resignation sparked mixed feelings across the nation.
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