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| LONDON — One of his predecessors described him as a “greased piglet”: a man who could slip out of any tight situation. |
| And despite a damaging scandal involving parties during Britain’s coronavirus lockdown that brought him a fine and a stinging official report, Prime Minister Boris Johnson might have expected to be in a strong position. |
| Little more than two and a half years ago, Mr. Johnson led the Conservative Party to its biggest election victory in decades. Until the next general election — on a date set by the prime minister, and potentially as late as January 2025 — only his own party’s lawmakers can force him out. |
| Early in June, they declined to do so, backing him in a no-confidence vote. And yet his position has only grown weaker: Two top ministers resigned Tuesday night in response to yet another scandal, and a growing clutch of colleagues have followed suit, leading analysts to declare him at “the end of the road.” |
| Here’s a guide to how he got here, and to what could happen next. |
| The trouble started with ‘partygate,’ but it hasn’t ended. |
| Since late last year, Mr. Johnson has been grappling with a series of reports about parties in Downing Street, where British prime ministers both live and work, while Covid lockdown rules were in force. The scandal became known as “partygate.” |
| In May, a long-awaited internal inquiry by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray, found that 83 people violated the rules at parties, during which some drank heavily, fought with each other and damaged property. The London police said they had imposed 126 fines for breaches of social distancing. Mr. Johnson himself received only one, for a surprise lunchtime birthday celebration, despite being present at several gatherings for which others were fined. |
| But in a country that banned almost all social contact for months and kept lesser, but still onerous, restrictions far longer, the claims of rule-breaking have packed an extraordinary emotional punch. Members of Parliament responded to Mr. Johnson’s initial denials of wrongdoing, and then to his apologies, with testimony from people who were barred from visiting dying relatives at the time of the gatherings. |
| A series of sexual misconduct scandals among Conservative lawmakers have further damaged Mr. Johnson. This week’s cabinet resignations followed the departure of Chris Pincher, a deputy chief whip — responsible for disciplining Conservative lawmakers — who was promoted by Mr. Johnson despite accusations of inappropriate behavior. Ministers and other officials denied on Mr. Johnson’s behalf that he had been aware of those accusations, only for that account to rapidly unravel. |
| Boris Johnson’s critics already tried to force him out and failed. |
| In Britain, it is hard to get rid of a prime minister, but far from impossible. The job goes to the leader of the political party with a parliamentary majority. The party can oust its leader and choose another one, changing prime ministers without a general election. |
| Under the Conservative Party’s rules, its members of Parliament can hold a binding vote of no confidence in Mr. Johnson if 15 percent of them — which currently means 54 lawmakers — write to formally request one. That moment came for Mr. Johnson on June 6, with a vote the same evening. |
| Mr. Johnson received 211 votes — just under 60 percent of his party’s 359 lawmakers — with 148 against him. |
| That’s a weaker result than it sounds, because almost half of those lawmakers also have government jobs that normally oblige them to back Mr. Johnson. This vote was a secret ballot, however, so it’s impossible to know if all of them did. |
| There’s also an asterisk on the other detail of the process that might sound reassuring for Mr. Johnson. Current Conservative rules say that he cannot face another party no-confidence vote for at least a year. But the party’s lawmakers set those rules. If a clear majority of them want him out, they can simply rewrite the rule book. |
| But cabinet resignations often indicate the beginning of the end. |
| Winning the no-confidence vote was essential, but it may not be enough. Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May were both out of office within a year of defeating a leadership challenge, by larger margins than Mr. Johnson. |
| One key factor is whether cabinet ministers rebel. The catalyst for Mrs. Thatcher’s demise in 1990 was the resignation of Geoffrey Howe, a disaffected former ally, and Mrs. May lost several ministers, including Mr. Johnson, who quit as foreign secretary in 2018. |
| On Tuesday evening, two of Mr. Johnson’s top ministers — Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sajid Javid, the health secretary — resigned within minutes of one another. |
| Not every big resignation is fatal: John Major remained as prime minister for almost four years after his chancellor, Norman Lamont, quit with a stinging speech in 1993. |
| But in an ominous sign for Mr. Johnson, even as he moved quickly to fill the vacancies left by Mr. Sunak and Mr. Javid, a growing stream of more junior colleagues were following their lead. |
| He could succumb to pressure from behind the scenes. |
| Once this was known as a visit from the “men in gray suits,” a phrase dating from an age when all key power brokers were men. In those days, when a group known as the “magic circle” chose the Conservative leader, such bigwigs could withdraw support, too. And leaders can sometimes still be persuaded to depart on their own terms rather than be booted out. |
| Mrs. May resigned in 2019, after surviving a leadership vote, when it was clear that her position had become hopeless. Similar pressure, accompanied by ministerial resignations, was used to evict Tony Blair, the Labour Party prime minister, from Downing Street in 2007. On Wednesday, British news outlets reported that Michael Gove, a senior minister who is also seen as a key power broker in the Conservative Party, had told Mr. Johnson it was time to go. |
| But there isn’t a clear successor. |
| One of the reasons Mr. Johnson’s fate has been unpredictable is that there is no consensus on who would replace him, and therefore no single cabal plotting to remove him. |
| Mr. Sunak, once considered the most likely successor, has himself suffered a fall from grace. He was fined for attending the same party as Mr. Johnson, and has also faced damaging reports around the tax status of his wealthy wife. |
| Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has remained in the government and is a leading contender. So, from outside the government, is Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary who lost to Mr. Johnson in the last Conservative leadership contest. Several others may run. |
| They all need to be careful. In the past, ambitious rivals have suffered from being seen as disloyal (though not Mr. Johnson, who opposed Mrs. May and then succeeded her). |
| And it might take a while to chose one. |
| If Mr. Johnson does resign as Conservative Party leader, or loses a fresh no-confidence vote, that may not immediately end his time in Downing Street. |
| His two most recent predecessors both resigned as party leader, and then stayed on as prime minister until the party had chosen a replacement. But Mr. Johnson could also step aside for an interim figure, such as the deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, who took on the prime minister’s duties when Mr. Johnson was hospitalized with Covid in 2020. |
| The Conservative Party doesn’t have published leadership election rules — the details and schedule are announced each time by the chairman of the same committee of lawmakers that decides about no-confidence votes. |
| The broad outlines, however, are set out in a briefing from the British Parliament’s library: Conservative lawmakers hold a series of ballots among themselves to whittle the number of contenders down to two. (In 2019, when Mr. Johnson won, the process began with 10 candidates, and took six ballots.) |
| The choice between that final two is made by a ballot of the party’s entire dues-paying membership. As of last year, according to a speech by a party official, there were about 200,000 Conservative Party members; they pay a standard annual subscription of 25 pounds, about $30. |
| The last two candidates in 2019, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Hunt, were given six weeks to make their cases. The result of the membership vote was announced some 46 days after Mrs. May had resigned as party leader, and Mr. Johnson visited Queen Elizabeth to be appointed prime minister the next day. |
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