Boris Johnson pulls out of Tory leadership race to replace Liz Truss

Boris Johnson has said he will not run in the Tory leadership race to replace Liz Truss, leaving just Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt in the quick-fire contest for Downing Street.

The ex-prime minister doubled down on claims that he had “cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations” required to appear on the ballot of Conservative MPs.

But said he had “sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do”, adding: “You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.”

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