Boris Johnson to address the nation today after collapse of his Government

The time’s up for Boris Johnson (Picture: PA)

Boris Johnson will make a statement to the nation today following the collapse of his Government, Downing Street has confirmed.

The Prime Minister has woken up to a fresh wave of resignations, now totalling more than 50, and it appears he has realised his time is up.

Nadhim Zahawi, who was appointed as Chancellor just 36 hours ago, may have delivered the final nail in the coffin with a blistering letter telling him to resign.

It is understood Mr Johnson’s team is now writing his resignation letter, which he is expected to read out in front of 10 Downing Street within hours.

Boris Johnson: The rise, the reign – and the fall?

Not too long ago, the prime minister was said to be eyeing a decade in power – a little more than two-and-a-half years after taking office, few would say that looks likely now.

If Boris Johnson is forced to resign imminently, he will record the shortest tenure of any prime minister since Sir Alec Douglas-Home in the mid-1960s.

He has been in Number 10 for just over two-and-a-half years, less than Gordon Brown or Theresa May, two recent successors who also failed to see out a full parliamentary term in office.

Resignation would mean Mr Johnson joining Anthony Eden in the history books in a select group of post-war prime ministers to have won a majority at first time of asking but failed to last a full term.

His resignation would halt a remarkable political rise that has become one of the dominant currents in modern British politics.

Mr Johnson had already been an MP in a safe Tory seat for seven years and a public figure when he decisively proved he may possess some form of political alchemy. 

He announced he would stand to be mayor of London, defying the odds to win in 2008 and pulling off the same trick again in 2012, securing a majority after two rounds on both occasions. To put that into context, no Tory candidate has managed to get more than 45% of the vote since.

He denied having ambitions to be prime minister when he returned to parliament in 2015 but Mr Johnson’s ill-suited role as the retiring backbencher would not last long.

After months of speculation, he announced he would campaign against his old friend David Cameron in the referendum on European Union membership.

He became a leading light in the campaign, helping to change the course of British history in the process, but bungled the subsequent leadership election, opening the door to Theresa May.

After just under two years as her foreign secretary, he resigned and became a chief agitator against the prime minister and her Brexit deal.

In the leadership election that followed her resignation, he swept away all before him with his pro-hard Brexit mantra, taking the same message to the country in December 2019.

Backed by the same machine that helped win the referendum – most notably, chief aide Dominic Cummings – he defied political expectations to win a decisive majority. 

But despite achieving his primary goal of leaving the EU and often flying high in the polls, his premiership has been dogged by controversy. 

Over a two year period dominated by Covid-19, Mr Johnson has seen his Downing Street operation disintegrate and high profile scandals have killed his political momentum.

There has been significant discontent within his own party over a range of issues, including the decision to raise National Insurance, the imposition of Covid-19 restrictions and his badly botched attempts to save a Tory MP who had lobbied the government on behalf of paid clients

He himself has faced two major ethics investigations, the first over who paid for a Caribbean holiday and the second over who financed the lavish refurbishment of the Downing Street flat.

Revelations about gatherings that took place in Downing Street in contravention of his own lockdown rules have pushed some Tory MPs over the edge.

Mr Johnson has endured calls for his resignation from within his own party and his Number 10 is now the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation.

He has defiantly resisted the political pressure and vowed to continue but the man once thought to have a political Midas touch now risks going down in history as a prime minister who won the war but lost the peace.