Image source, Reuters

Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock has called for Boris Johnson to announce his intention to resign, saying the PM's departure is "inevitable" in the next few days.

Hancock tells the BBC it would be better for Johnson to go today to begin an "orderly process" for finding the next prime minister.

Turning to a leadership contest, Hancock says he will not be standing, but adds that it would be "right and proper" for Johnson to stay in office while the contest is ongoing to ensure a smooth transition.

Tory MP and leading Brexiteer Steve Baker has been speaking to the Today programme.

He says "clearly this morning the government is in freefall," adding the current situation "will come to an end in the next couple of days".

Baker adds it's "time to think about the future" and says the Conservative 1922 Comittee must change the rules to allow another vote of confidence in Boris Johnson.

He says he expects a vote of confidence will be held by Tuesday at the latest.

Baker also says he is considering "seriously" a potential leadership bid.

No 10 will be watching vacancies add uppublished at 08:21 British Summer Time 7 July 2022

08:21 BST 7 July 2022

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

We are now into the third day of a steady stream of resignations from Boris Johnson’s government.

As No 10 figures out its next move, it will be watching as the vacancies add up. Some think it is going to be difficult for the PM to fill them. The PM’s team were defiant last night.

They said Johnson had a mandate from the electorate and it would be chaos if he left.

But his party seems to have concluded otherwise.

James Cartlidge has quit as courts' minister, becoming the 53rd member of the government to resign.

Cartlidge, an MP for South Suffolk since 2015, says Boris Johnson's position is "clearly untenable".

Technology minister Chris Philp has resigned, his departure makes him the 52nd member of government to quit.

He says Boris Johnson should "step down given public and Parliamentary confidence has clearly gone."

Another Tory MP who has publicly withdrawn his support for Johnson has said the PM needs to "get real" and acknowledge he needs to step down.

Harlow MP and Education Select Committee chairman Robert Halfon told the BBC that people feel "let down", adding that the public and the Conservative party have lost trust in their leader.

Halfon, who supported Johnson in last month's confidence vote, urged the PM to resign "for the sake of the country", and for the sake of government and the unity of the Tory party.

He warned that if Johnson battles on, the next election will be lost, the party will be "destroyed", and that problems such as the cost of living surge won't be solved for the public.

Hexham MP Guy Opperman has resigned his post as pensions minister.

He said that he had been "particularly upset at the behaviour of the Number 10 team during the Covid restrictions" and that "recent events have shown clearly that government simply cannot function with you in charge".

He added that "no one individual, however successful in the past, is bigger than the party, or this great country".

George Freeman, who was the science minister, has told the BBC that he has resigned from government this morning.

Freeman wrote a letter to Boris Johnson saying he no longer had confidence in the PM, saying "enough is enough".

Sir Bernard Jenkin, chair of the Liaison Committee and Conservative MP for Harwich & North Essex, says he told the prime minister yesterday that he "can go with some dignity" or he can be "forced out like Donald Trump, clinging to power and pretending he’s won the election when he’s lost".

Jenkin tells the BBC there's "no question it’s over for Boris Johnson as prime minster," adding that he told the PM that "it’s just when you go now and how you go".

“There are three ways a prime minister can be removed; one is his government falls apart and that’s happening, it’s astonishing he hasn’t got the message form that,” Jenkins says.

“Second; the bigger vote of confidence in the Conservative Party to remove him as leader and he’d have to go.

“Ultimately, there could be a vote of confidence in the House of Commons and I don’t think he would want to bring it to that.

“The responsibility here is for those closest around him,” Jenkins says. “I hope he’ll go today, he really must go today – surely he sees the writing on the wall.”

Image source, PA Media

More now on the resignation of Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis.

He told the Prime Minister that he was submitting his resignation with "regret", but said that a divided Conservative Party cannot win elections.

He told Boris Johnson: "A decision to leave Government is never taken lightly, particularly at such a critical time for Northern Ireland. I have taken a lot of time to consider this decision, having outlined my position to you at length last night.

"A divided Party cannot win elections," he says.

Science minister George Freeman has written to Boris Johnson to tell him he no longer has confidence in his leadership.

Although he did not explicitly say he was quitting as a minister, he said it had been "a great honour to serve my country, crown and the Conservative party in Government."

He added, "the chaos in your Cabinet and No 10 this month is destroying our credibility".

Security minister Damian Hinds has announced his resignation from government.

He becomes the third resignation this morning as the prime minister grapples with further losses.

In his letter he said: "It shouldn't take the resignation of dozens of colleagues, but for our country, and trust in our democracy, we must have a change of leadership."

Image source, EPA

Former Brexit Minister Lord Frost, who was a close ally of the prime minister, says “the game is up” for Johnson.

“The government can’t continue, that’s very clear, and I hope the prime minister might have reflected overnight and come to that same conclusion himself,” Frost told the BBC’s Today Programme.

“I worry that if he carries on as he did last night, he’s going to cause very serious damage to the conservative party.”

He said that the prime minister will have “a great place in history for delivering Brexit” and adds that he’s proud to have worked with him to do it.

“But what we’ve seen in the last few months is that he can’t set the government on the right path to take things forward and deliver for the British people.”

Frost said he was "distressed and downhearted" about this reality, but said Johnson is making "a big mistake in trying to fight this out" and that government needs to "move on".

Image source, EPA

Conservative MP Julian Smith has been speaking to Radio 4's Today Programme this morning.

The former Northern Ireland secretary, sacked by the prime minister in February 2020, says that it’s a “preposterous argument” for Boris Johnson to claim he has a personal mandate to govern.

He says the majority of MPs are now wanting Johnson to step down and claims the country is in a constitutional crisis, as the prime minister doesn’t have the confidence of his party.

He’s “holding out in a Trumpian style” and “worryingly” challenging the system that we’ve run the country in for years.

"This morning he should not be in Downing Street", Smith adds.

Helen Whately, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, has just announced her resignation from government.

In her resignation letter to the prime minister, she said she has argued for Boris Johnson to continue in recent months but "there are only so many times you can apologies and move on".

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis has resigned, becoming the fourth cabinet member to leave their post.

In his letter to the prime minister he says a "decent and responsible government relies on honesty, integrity and mutual respect - it is a matter of profound personal regret for me that I must leave government as I no longer believe those values are being upheld."

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

Image source, PA Media

As Boris Johnson went to bed last night, he was defiant. His team said he had a personal mandate and would call the bluff of the cabinet ministers telling him to go.

This morning, he has two key calculations to make.

One: does he still think he can hang on? My sense speaking to senior Tories is that the party has turned quite dramatically against its leader.

One grandee told me this morning it was now a question of the manner of Boris Johnson’s departure.

The PM’s critics will try and force another confidence vote next week; it’s hard to see him winning unless something changes dramatically.

Two: who will fill the vacant government jobs? There are a lot, from cabinet level down to ministerial aides. Some MPs think the prime minister will struggle to fill them.

Events in Westminster continue to move at lightning speed, and with Michael Gove sacked by the prime minister last night, and Attorney General Suella Braverman revealing she will stand for the party leadership, what is the current state of play?

Adam Fleming and BBC Political Editor Chris Mason are joined by former-Boris Johnson adviser, Will Walden, to talk it through in the latest Newscast.

Listen to the full podcast here.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Image source, Reuters

Boris Johnson has drawn comparisons to Donald Trump through much of his ascent to the heights of British politics.

Now he’s taking a page out of the former US president’s playbook.

Concede nothing. Brush off the criticism. Press on. Make them tear the power from your hands.

If there’s one thing the former president proved in American politics, it is that norms and political traditions only matter if you acknowledge them. And that’s something Trump never did.

Even in his darkest days as president – through two impeachments and countless “has he finally gone too far?” controversies – Trump would point to his loyal base and cite, sometimes without evidence, the enormous support he had in surveys of Republicans and the comfortable margin by which he won the electoral (but not popular) vote in 2016.

Now Johnson is pursuing a similar strategy, citing the support of the millions who voted Conservative in the 2019 election, rather than the dissatisfaction of dozens of politicians and party functionaries who have abandoned him in recent days.

Never mind that the US and British systems of government are decidedly different and that a presidential claim to a popular mandate – when voters checked a box next to their name on the ballot - is considerably stronger than that of a prime minister who governs at the behest of their party.

And set aside that only in Trump’s final weeks, after he had lost his re-election and a mob of his supporters attacked the US Capitol, did he see a mass exodus of advisors akin to what Johnson is experiencing.

Trump showed that claiming to be the voice of the people against the elite establishment can be the political equivalent of a bulletproof vest. That’s a lesson Johnson seems to have taken to heart.

There is just one story on every front page of Thursday's newspapers.

"Desperate" and "deluded" is the Guardian's verdict, external on Boris Johnson's attempt to cling on to power. The paper says the prime minister is "locked in an unprecedented standoff" with his own cabinet, as he hunkers down and tries to see out the storm.

For the Daily Telegraph,, external he is "mortally wounded" - after a day "unlike anything in modern political history." Looking ahead to the prospect of a second confidence vote on Mr Johnson's leadership, the paper reports that the government whips' office has calculated he would get just 65 votes from a total of 360 Conservative MPs.

The Times agrees, external he is "fighting for his life" after ending a "day of chaos" with the sacking of Michael Gove. An ally of the prime minister tells the paper it was "something he should have done years ago".

You can read the paper review in full here.