Will Quince, Laura Trott resign from British PM Boris Johnson’s cabinet

Will Quince was among two new MPs who submitted their resignations to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday morning. A flurry of lawmakers in Johnson’s cabinet resigned a day before, including Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid.

Will Quince, who is now the former Minister for Children and Families, posted a photo of his resignation letter on social media.

He wrote, “With great sadness and regret, I have this morning tendered my resignation to the Prime Minister after I accepted and repeated assurances on Monday to the media which have now been found to be inaccurate. I wish my successor well – it is the best job in government.”

The second senior Tory politician to resign was Laura Trott, who was the parliamentary private secretary to the Department for Transport.

Trott, who was considered to be a rising star among the conservatives, said that she had lost “trust” in the government, news agency AFP reported.

Even though Prime Minister Boris Johnson has not yet reacted to the two new resignations, he remained mostly defiant after Sunak and Javid’s withdrawal from the cabinet.

His first challenge is getting through Wednesday, where he faces tough questions at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session in Parliament, and a long-scheduled grilling by the 1922 Committee, Associated Press reported.

Johnson quickly replaced the two ministers, promoting Nadhim Zahawi from the education department to the Treasury and installing his chief of staff, Steve Barclay, as health secretary.

What changed for British PM Boris Johnson?

In the past few months, Johnson has been fined by police and slammed by an investigator’s report over lockdown-breaching parties in government during the pandemic; survived a no-confidence vote by his party in which 41% of Conservative lawmakers voted to oust him; and has seen formerly loyal lieutenants urge him to resign.

The latest scandal began last week when lawmaker Chris Pincher resigned as Conservative deputy chief whip amid complaints that he groped two men at a private club. That triggered a series of reports about past allegations leveled against Pincher and questions about why Johnson promoted him to a senior job enforcing party discipline.