Leaders of British governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have welcomed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that he plans to step down as leader of the Conservative Party on Thursday.
Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the resignation would bring “a widespread sense of relief that the chaos of recent days (indeed months) is coming to an end”.
In a statement on her Twitter account, she said: “Boris Johnson was always clearly unfit to be prime minister and the Tories should never have elected him leader or kept him in office for as long as they have.”
Sturgeon, who announced last month that she plans to hold an independence referendum next year, questioned Johnson’s plan to remain prime minister until the fall, saying it is “far from ideal and certainly not sustainable”.
Mark Drakeford, the Prime Minister of Walessaid Johnson “did the right thing”.
“All four nations need a stable British government and I am therefore pleased to see that the Prime Minister has now done the right thing and agrees to step down,” he said.
Michelle O’Neill, ushering in Sinn Fein Northern Irelandsaid it was “absurd” that Johnson was allowed to stay in the office for so long.
“It has been an utter absurdity that the people here have been subjected to Boris Johnson for any length of time. He is a figure of absolute disgrace. Anyone who tries to sabotage our peace agreements, a quarter of a century of progress and our shared future is really no friend from us,” she said. Sinn Fein is the largest group in Stormont, Northern Ireland’s devolved parliament.