Boris Johnson will stay on as an MP after he finally leaves Downing Street, a close ally has revealed.
The prime minister said today he will hand the keys of Number 10 to a new Tory leader following a brutal rebellion against him.
In a defiant and at times spiky statement, Mr Johnson didn’t confirm whether or not he intended to remain in Westminster.
Now his PPS James Duddridge has confirmed he intends to carry on representing Uxbridge and South Ruislip when he leaves office.
He wrote on Twitter that it was ‘good to hear the boss will carry on as an MP’.
It’s unclear if he would simply serve until the next election before stepping down or continue indefinitely under a new prime minister.
His predecessor Theresa May chose to continue and fight an election under Boris Johnson, while David Cameron resigned his seat a few months after being replaced in Number 10.
Gordon Brown continued for the entirety of the 2010-2015 parliament while Tony Blair chose an early exit, triggering a by-election just a few weeks after being ousted.
The announcement will likely fuel speculation among his critics that the outgoing leader still has half an eye on a political comeback in the future.
Former PM John Major is leading calls for him to leave office immediately rather than stay on as a caretaker.
He has called for a truncated leadership contest to replace him quickly or for deputy prime minister Dominic Raab to take over during the interim after a turbulent week which cast the party into turmoil.
Labour says it will call for a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons in a bid to Mr Johnson out of Number 10 more quickly.
The timing of his departure as things stands is dependant on the leadership election timetable set out by the 1922 Committee next week.
A lengthy contest raises the prospect of Mr Johnson remaining in office well into the autumn despite seeing his authority utterly shattered over an extraordinary few days.
MORE : From rebel, to king, to failure: The rise and fall of Boris Johnson
Should Mr Johnson choose to fight his seat at the next election, he may find himself cast into another desperate political fight.
Opinion polling during a low point in his premiership showed he was on course to lose to Labour.
Boris Johnson: The rise, the reign and the fall
Just a few months ago, the prime minister was said to be eyeing a decade in power. Now, the party is over.
He has been in Number 10 for just under three years, a little more than Gordon Brown and just less than Theresa May, the predecessor he helped to oust.
Mr Johnson masterminded a political rise that upended British politics in its wake but it all ended in tears, just like his critics always said it would.
He 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.
A run to be London mayor in 2008 saw him defy the odds and he pulled 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.
Mr Johnson denied having ambitions to be prime minister when he returned to parliament in 2015 but the ill-suited role of retiring backbencher would not last long.
After months of speculation, he announced he would fight 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 just when he seemed destined for Downing Street, he bungled the subsequent leadership election, opening the door to Theresa May.
After a little 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 initially flying high in the polls, his premiership has been dogged by controversy.
There has been significant discontent within his own party over a range of issues, including the decision to raise taxes, the imposition of lockdown and his badly botched attempts to save a Tory MP who had lobbied the government on behalf of paid clients
He himself has faced major sleaze investigations, the first over who paid for a Caribbean holiday and the second over who financed the lavish refurbishment of the Downing Street flat, and he has seen two independent ethics advisors quit in protest.
Revelations about parties that took place in Downing Street in contravention of his own Covid laws and his Met Police fine pushed some Tory MPs over the edge but it was the Chris Pincher affair that proved fatal.
His time in Number 10 was supposed to be all about Brexit and ‘levelling up’ but instead became dominated by Covid-19 and latterly the cost of living crisis and war in Ukraine.
Mr Johnson defiantly resisted the political pressure until the bitter end but the man once thought to have a political Midas touch will go down in history as a prime minister who won the war but lost the peace.
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