LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation Thursday amid a mass revolt by top members of his government, marking an end to three tumultuous years in power in which he brazenly bent and sometimes broke the rules of British politics.
Months of defiance ended almost with a shrug as Johnson stood outside 10 Downing St. and conceded that his party wanted him gone.
“I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world,” he said. “Them’s the breaks.”
The brash 58-year-old politician who took Britain out of the European Union and steered it through COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine was brought down by one scandal too many — this one involving his appointment of a politician who had been accused of sexual misconduct.
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Boris Johnson, then-mayor of London, looks through plexiglass, in 2011.
(Kirsty Wigglesworth / Associated Press)
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson poses with Sadhus, or Hindu holy men, in front of the Swaminarayan Akshardham temple, in Gandhinagar, part of his two-day trip to India in 2022.
(Ben Stansall / Associated Press)
Then-Mayor Boris Johnson, left, poses with a wax figure of himself at Madame Tussauds wax museum in London in 2009.
(Sang Tan / Associated Press)
Boris Johnson takes part in a Street Rugby tournament in a Tokyo street Oct. 15, 2015.
(Stefan Rousseau / Associated Press)
Conservative Party leadership candidate Boris Johnson, center, eats an ice cream cone in Barry Island, Wales, in 2019.
(Frank Augstein / Associated Press)
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets with President Trump at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2019.
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
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Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson air-spars during a stop at Jimmy Egan’s Boxing Academy in Manchester, England, while on his general election campaign in 2019.
(Frank Augstein / Associated Press)
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II welcomes newly elected leader of the Conservative party Boris Johnson during an audience at Buckingham Palace in 2019.
(Victoria Jones / Associated Press)
Britain’s Prince Charles, center, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, right, shelter from rain during the unveiling of the U.K. Police Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, England, in 2021.
(Christopher Furlong / Associated Press)
Prime Minister Boris Johnson jogs in central London in 2022.
