A summary of developments
The party is over. After three long years of misruling, Boris Johnson has resigned from the UK government. Following a succession of scandals, election defeats and desertions he was left with little choice.
Stories have exposed how he and his aides violated lockdown rules with parties, gave contracts to cronies and travelled when they shouldn't have.
This milestone demonstrates the vital significance of independent journalism within the functioning of our democracy today.
What will (and won’t) change about UK foreign policy
On the 7th of July Boris reluctantly gave in to what we began to see as the inevitable and resigned. However on Wednesday night, when we witnessed the resignation of the majority of his ministers, he argued that he should remain as prime minister until the next leader is elected.
Boris did however announce that he would not be implementing any new policies during this time.
How will the next prime minister be elected?
A new prime minister will be chosen by conservative MPs and their members.
The first stage is (assuming there are more than two candidates) for the hopefuls to be whittled down by a series of votes by tory MPs.
The precise method for this is set out by the party's backbench 1922 committee before each race, but in every round of MP voting, the candidate with the least support among MPs, and potentially also those who fail to reach a set of threshold votes, are eliminated, depending on the size of the parliament party at the time.
The final two are then voted on by party members, a longer process involving a series of hustings events. In 2019, when Johnson replaced Theresa May, the entire leadership process took about six weeks.