As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government saw one resignation after another on Wednesday, 7 July, the PM fired Michael Gove, Levelling up, Housing and Communities Secretary, after he urged Johnson to resign as PM.
After Gove was sacked, Secretary of State for Wales Simon Hart became the third Cabinet minister to resign from the PM’s government.
Earlier in the evening, Hart was part of a group of Cabinet ministers including Home Secretary Priti Patel and newly appointed Finance Minister Nidham Zahawi, who visited Johnson, urging him to quit.
Hart wrote in his resignation letter, "I have never been a massive fan of ministerial resignations being the best means of forcing change," The Guardian reported.
He added, “Colleagues have done their utmost in private and public to help you turn the ship around, but it is with sadness that I feel we have passed the point where this is possible”.
By Wednesday evening, 38 ministers had quit in total, mostly from more junior positions outside the Cabinet.
Meanwhile, Johnson has vowed to stay in power despite the resignations of those who have cited the PM’s leadership as reason for them to quit and claimed that they could no longer support Johnson due to his handling of ethics scandals, including the appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip, despite Johnson belatedly admitted to knowing that Pincher was found to have behaved inappropriately in 2019.
In June this year, Johnson had successfully survived a trust vote by winning the backing of 211 out of 359 Conservative lawmakers.
However, the attempt by opponents to change party rules which allow a new no-confidence vote could further oust Johnson. He had survived the last vote with 41 percent of votes against him.
Further, Johnson also has to navigate two public grilling sessions: The weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session in parliament and an interrogation by a committee of senior lawmakers, AP reported.
(With inputs from AP and The Guardian.)
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