Boris Johnson once privately remarked that it would take a flame-thrower to force him out of Downing Street. And it almost came to that. But the embattled UK Prime Minister has now finally resigned. "It is clearly the will of the parliamentary Conservative party that there should be a new leader of that party, and therefore a new prime minister," Johnson said outside 10 Downing Street, adding that he would stay on as Prime Minister until a replacement is found.
For the past 24 hours, 10 Downing Street had been a bunker – with an embattled Prime Minister refusing to take the advice of cabinet colleagues that his time was up and that he must resign.
It has been the most intense political drama, and psycho-drama, in modern Britain. For a time it seemed that Johnson – arguing that his 2019 election victory was a personal mandate – would cling to office as his government quite literally fell apart. There was talk that he might ‘do a Trump’ and try to cleave to power in defiance of political and constitutional norms.