Is this finally the end for Boris Johnson?

'The world has moved on'

Johnson himself left open the possibility of yet another Lazarus-style comeback. “It is very sad to be leaving Parliament — at least for now,” he said in a bombshell statement Friday.

Johnson essentially quit before he could be fired, as the fallout from the scandal involving boozy parties held during Covid lockdowns threatened to leave him facing a recall vote he was likely to lose.

Some saw his charged remarks and shots at his rivals as an attempt to reignite a civil war within the ruling Conservative Party, but aside from a few minor resignations and supportive comments, his departure was greeted more with relief than rage.

"The world has moved on," Energy Secretary Grant Shapps told NBC News' British partner Sky News on Sunday.

Perhaps a sign of Johnson’s faded stature, even his shocking exit was partly overshadowed by the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump.

His time in office was characterized by extremes.

In 2019 he guided his party to its biggest electoral landslide since the 1970s, and got severely ill during the coronavirus pandemic while delivering one of the first widespread vaccination campaigns of the Western world.

At the same time he courted regular infamy, both personal and professional, which in the end was too much even for his allies.

The partygate scandal indirectly led to him stepping down as prime minister last year. And the same topic led to his departure Friday.

Johnson was being investigated by Parliament's privileges committee over whether he misled lawmakers about "partygate." The committee had the power to recommend Johnson be suspended for more than 10 days, potentially triggering a local election in which he would have to fight for his parliamentary seat.

Instead, after receiving the committee's findings, he resigned first.

In a statement, he branded the process a "kangaroo court" and a "witch hunt" led by "deeply prejudicial" lawmakers.

Though the committee is chaired by Harriet Harman, a veteran member of the opposition Labour Party, four of its seven members are from Johnson's own Conservative Party.

In response to the resignation announcement, the committee said Johnson had “impugned the integrity” of the House of Commons with his attack. It said it would meet Monday “to conclude the inquiry and to publish its report promptly.”

Party problems

Johnson laced his parting message with a broadside toward current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a former rival who was instrumental in his downfall last year.

“When I left office last year the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened,” he said. “Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do.”

Johnson formally stepped down as a member of Parliament on Monday, Parliamentary authorities announced. He also Sunak of "talking rubbish" in a related dispute playing out in public.

The former leader's departure, and the seemingly connected resignations of two allies, creates a major headache for Sunak.

Trailing in the polls, he now faces contests for three Conservative parliamentary seats, offering momentum to Labour ahead of nationwide elections next year that it's projected to win.

Conservative poll ratings slipped into decline during the final months of Johnson’s tenure and have not recovered since, with Labour now frequently placing 20 points ahead.

It's far from the first time the Eton and Oxford-educated Johnson has left his post unceremoniously, having been fired by both British newspaper The Times in 1987 and then the Conservative Party in 2004 over alleged impropriety.

Nevertheless, his bombastic approach helped make him a household name as a lawmaker, mayor of London, foreign secretary and then prime minister. The self-declared liberal, branded a shameless opportunist by opponents, was also the chief Brexiteer in 2016.