Boris Johnson confirms he will leave Number 10 despite petition demanding he stays

Boris Johnson has confirmed his time as prime minister will soon come to an end, crushing the hopes of thousands of Tories who signed a petition demanding he remains Conservative party leader.

Opening the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the PM said the baton of leadership will be "passed seamlessly and invisibly" to his successor.

Boris Johnson promises he will soon leave Downing Street

He announced his resignation on July 7 but ever since there has been speculation that he could reverse that decision and seek to stay in Downing Street.

Commentators noted the absence of the word "resignation" from his resignation speech, sparking conspiracies that he was planning to stay.

Then he used suggestive language in his final PMQs, further fuelling theories about his intention to retain power.

Mr Johnson told the Commons it was "mission largely accomplished for now" before saying goodbye to MPs with "hasta la vista, baby", the Spanish term for "see you later, baby".

Number 10 did not squash speculation about why he used those words, telling reporters it was simply "his way of saying farewell to his colleagues".

A leadership contest then got underway, which eventually resulted in Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak being finalists, and it appeared certain Mr Johnson's time in Number 10 was coming to a close.

But, on July 18, a petition was started on Tory news site conservativepost.co.uk which demanded Mr Johnson's name be added to the leadership contest's ballot paper.

A week later the petition had more than 10,000 signatures, with the website requiring people to prove their party membership with a registration number. There has been speculation however that many of those to sign the petition were in fact not party members.

Around the same time, one Tory behind the petition, Lord Peter Cruddas said the prime minister had told him he “does not want to resign”.

The Conservative peer, speaking to the Telegraph, said the PM told him over lunch at his country residence Chequers that he “wants to fight the next general election as leader of the party”.

A source close to Mr Johnson denied those claims to the paper, saying the PM "does not support any campaign to put him on the leadership ballot and will back whoever is the next leader”.

And judging by his speech in Birmingham on Thursday, it appears he's conceded his tenure is almost over.

"We come now to the next stage in the great relay race of politics," he said. "I didn't think it was meant to be a relay race, by the way, when I started.

"I can assure you that the baton is going to be passed seamlessly and invisibly to the hand of somebody else."

That person will either be Foreign Secretary Truss or former chancellor Mr Sunak.

The pair have a month of campaigning before voting in the Tory leadership race closes on September 2 and the winner is announced on September 5.

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Britain's next prime minister will be chosen by a tiny proportion of the UK electorate; the more than 160,000 people who are Tory party members.

Ms Truss, who remained in Mr Johnson's Cabinet after Mr Sunak resigned in protest against the leader, is the favourite to win.

Mr Sunak, trailing in the polls, has now committed to a VAT cut on energy bills in a bid to shore up support, despite spending weeks trashing other tax cuts offered by his rivals.

Prime Minister Johnson could not resist taking a thinly veiled swipe at his former right-hand man over the tax pledge when speaking in Birmingham.

Speaking of both leadership hopefuls, he said: "I'll give you this assurance, they will continue with the same programme, cutting taxes, simplifying regulation as much as possible, taking advantage of all our new regulatory freedoms, getting rid of every encumbrance from solvency to MiFID to VAT on fuel - turns out to be easier than we thought."