UK PM Johnson: I will not resign

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday he was not going to resign, and that the last thing the country needed was a national election.

"I am not going to step down and the last thing this country needs, frankly, is an election," he told a parliamentary committee, when asked to confirm he would not seek to call an election rather than resign if he lost a vote of confidence.

A storm of resignations within the Conservative government since yesterday saw 38 MPs, including two senior ministers, leaving their posts.

Johnson had to face calls of resignation from opposition parties and some of his backbenchers in the House of Commons over his appointment of MP Chris Pincher as the party's deputy chief whip who was disgraced after being accused of drunkenly groping two men.

Johnson wants to "fight on" and is likely to make more ministerial appointments, according to the same sources.

The prime minister has been urged to resign by some of his Cabinet ministers, including Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi-who Johnson appointed yesterday after Rishi Sunak's resignation-and Home Secretary Priti Patel.

The backdrop to the dozens of resignations came after the scandal over Pincher.

Downing Street initially said that Johnson was unaware of previous specific allegations against Pincher, but it later emerged that he was in fact informed when he was foreign minister in 2019 of previous instances of alleged misconduct on Pincher's part.

Just before the resignations, Johnson had apologized for appointing Pincher as the deputy chief whip.