...LONDON (S&P Global Ratings) July 7, 2022--Earlier today, Boris Johnson formally resigned as leader of the Conservative Party and announced his intention to stay as caretaker prime minister until a successor is chosen in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, the succession process currently remains uncertain as demands emerge for Mr. Johnson to step down now with another leader taking over in the interim. In light of the party's sizable parliamentary majority, the prime minister's resignation will not trigger snap elections by itself and our base-case expectation remains that a general election will not take place before 2024. Nevertheless, the probability of an early election has still risen: We note that in the past British prime ministers sometimes decided to go to an out-of-cycle poll to seek a fresh mandate, which was the case with Theresa May in 2017 and Boris Johnson in 2019. In our view, the U.K.'s next prime minister will have to deal with a number of challenges currently facing the U.K....
