I WILL NOT RESIGN: UK’S JOHNSON

Wed 06 July 2022:

Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, declared on Wednesday that he would not step down and that a national election was the last thing the nation needed.

“I am not going to step down and the last thing this country needs, frankly, is an election,” he told a parliamentary committee, when asked to confirm he would not seek to call an election rather than resign if he lost a vote of confidence.

1922 Committee changes rules around confidence vote, Sun reporter says

The Conservative Party’s 1922 Committee has changed the rules to remove Johnson’s year-long immunity from facing another vote of confidence in his leadership after he won such a vote in June, a reporter at the Sun newspaper said on Twitter.

 Group of ministers including new chancellor to tell Johnson to go

A group of cabinet ministers are about to tell Johnson to quit, including the man who has just been appointed as the new chancellor of the exchequer, media reports said on Wednesday.

BBC Political Editor Chris Mason said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps would lead a delegation on Wednesday evening. The Times newspaper reported that Nadhim Zahawi, appointed as chancellor late on Tuesday as Johnson’s government started to collapse, would be part of the delegation.

Zahawi had told reporters earlier on Wednesday that he gave his total backing to Johnson.

Asked about the reports, Johnson declined to comment directly.

 Johnson tells committee it wouldn’t be ‘responsible’ for him to resign now

Johnson told a parliamentary committee it wouldn’t be “responsible” for him to resign amid the war in Ukraine: “I look at the the issues that this country faces […] I look at the biggest war in Europe for 80 years,” he said. “And I cannot, for the life of me, see how it is responsible just to walk away from that.”

According to the YouGov snap poll released on Tuesday evening, 33% of Tory voters thought Johnson should stay in office, while 54% thought he should step down, according to The Independent.

According to the pollster, this is the first time that more people are calling for him to leave than are advocating for him to stay.

At 69 percent, the proportion of Britons who supported Johnson’s resignation was at an all-time high.