Boris Johnson has given a speech filled with power and pomp as his remaining act as prime minister of the UK earlier than heading to Scotland to formally supply his resignation to the Queen.
He urged his supporters to get behind his successor, Liz Truss, who will probably be appointed prime minister throughout her personal viewers with the Queen a short while after Johnson.
Truss was chosen on Monday to take excessive job in a management poll towards Rishi Sunak two months after Johnson introduced his intention to step down within the wake of controversies that noticed his get together's help for him decline.
Truss, who was overseas secretary below Johnson, had been broadly tipped to win the poll forward of ex-treasury chief Sunak after profitable the help of many Tories with a promise to roll again state intervention and slash taxes.
In the long run, she satisfied 81,326 of about 170,000 paying Tory get together members to vote for her to Sunak's 60,399.
In his remaining tackle exterior 10 Downing Avenue on Tuesday, Johnson was bombastic, unapologetically verbose, poetic and unusual.
"That is it, of us," he mentioned.
"The torch will lastly be handed to a brand new Conservative chief.
"By means of that lacquered black door, a brand new prime minister will shortly go to satisfy a bunch of improbable public servants."
His remaining speech as prime minister had the texture of an election pitch relatively than a swan tune.
He pointed to the exceptional pace of Britain's vaccine rollout.
"That's authorities for you. That is this Conservative authorities."
Johnson energetically touted the nation's future power independence, notably singing the praises of offshore wind energy and nuclear reactors.
In two consecutive sentences, he likened himself to a booster rocket launching a spaceship out of the environment, and to an historic Roman statesman.
"I'll now be gently re-entering the environment, and splashing down in some obscure and distant nook of the Pacific," Johnson mentioned.
"Like Cincinnatus, I'll retire to my plough," he mentioned.
He thanked his household, together with his canine Dylan and cat Larry, the chief mouser to the Cupboard Workplace.
"If Dylan and Larry can put apart their variations, then so can the Conservative get together."
Crises which have rocked Boris Johnson's authorities
Larry has served below three prime ministers.