By DAN­I­CA KIR­KA and JILL LAW­LESS | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

LON­DON (AP) — British Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son vowed Wednes­day to stay in pow­er de­spite the res­ig­na­tions of two top Cab­i­net min­is­ters and a slew of more ju­nior of­fi­cials, who said they could no longer serve un­der his scan­dal-tarred lead­er­ship.

John­son told law­mak­ers that “the job of a prime min­is­ter in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, when you’ve been hand­ed a colos­sal man­date, is to keep go­ing.”

John­son’s hold on pow­er has been shak­en by the res­ig­na­tions Tues­day of Trea­sury chief Rishi Sunak and Health Sec­re­tary Sajid Javid. They quit say­ing they could no longer sup­port John­son be­cause of his han­dling of ethics scan­dals in­clud­ing the case of a se­nior of­fi­cial ac­cused of sex­u­al mis­con­duct.

John­son quick­ly re­placed the two men, but a string of ju­nior min­is­ters have al­so stepped down, and John­son’s sup­port in­side his Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty is shrink­ing rapid­ly.

Op­po­nents al­so hope to change par­ty rules to al­low a new no-con­fi­dence vote that could oust John­son. He sur­vived one such vote last month, with 41% of law­mak­ers vot­ing against him.

The most im­me­di­ate chal­lenge for the leader is to get through two pub­lic grilling ses­sions: the week­ly Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions ses­sion in Par­lia­ment that’s al­ready un­der­way and a long-sched­uled in­ter­ro­ga­tion lat­er Wednes­day by a com­mit­tee of se­nior law­mak­ers.

How he han­dles the tough ques­tions could in­di­cate whether a sim­mer­ing re­bel­lion in his Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty can gath­er enough strength to oust him.

John­son is known for his un­can­ny abil­i­ty to shrug off scan­dals, but a se­ries of ac­cu­sa­tions of mis­deeds have pushed him to the brink, and some of his fel­low Con­ser­v­a­tive law­mak­ers now wor­ry that the leader renowned for his af­fa­bil­i­ty could be a li­a­bil­i­ty in elec­tions.

Many are al­so con­cerned about the abil­i­ty of a weak­ened John­son to gov­ern at a time of in­creas­ing eco­nom­ic and so­cial strain.

Months of dis­con­tent over John­son’s judg­ment and ethics with­in the gov­ern­ing Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty erupt­ed with Sunak’s and Javid’s res­ig­na­tions with­in min­utes of each oth­er on Tues­day evening. The two heavy­weights of the Cab­i­net were re­spon­si­ble for tack­ling two of the biggest is­sues fac­ing Britain — the cost-of-liv­ing cri­sis and the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

In a scathing let­ter, Sunak said “the pub­lic right­ly ex­pects gov­ern­ment to be con­duct­ed prop­er­ly, com­pe­tent­ly and se­ri­ous­ly. … I be­lieve these stan­dards are worth fight­ing for and that is why I am re­sign­ing.”

Javid said the par­ty need­ed “hu­mil­i­ty, grip and a new di­rec­tion” but “it is clear this sit­u­a­tion will not change un­der your lead­er­ship.”

John­son quick­ly pro­mot­ed Nad­him Za­hawi from the ed­u­ca­tion de­part­ment to trea­sury chief and in­stalled his chief of staff, Steve Bar­clay, as health sec­re­tary.

But the dan­ger to John­son ap­pears far from over.

In the past few months, John­son has been fined by po­lice and slammed by an in­ves­ti­ga­tor’s re­port for gov­ern­ment par­ties that flout­ed the COVID-19 re­stric­tions they im­posed on oth­ers; nar­row­ly sur­vived the no-con­fi­dence vote; and watched for­mer­ly loy­al lieu­tenants urge him to re­sign.

Through it all, he has vowed to car­ry on gov­ern­ing — even sug­gest­ing he want­ed to stay in of­fice un­til the 2030s.

But for­mer In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Sec­re­tary An­drew Mitchell was among sev­er­al mem­bers of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty who told John­son his time was up.

“It’s a bit like the death of Rasputin. He’s been poi­soned, stabbed, he’s been shot, his body’s been dumped in a freez­ing riv­er and still he lives,” he told the BBC. “But this is an ab­nor­mal prime min­is­ter, a bril­liant­ly charis­mat­ic, very fun­ny, very amus­ing, big, big char­ac­ter. But I’m afraid he has nei­ther the char­ac­ter nor the tem­pera­ment to be our prime min­is­ter.”

The fi­nal straw for Sunak and Javid was the prime min­is­ter’s shift­ing ex­pla­na­tions about his han­dling of sex­u­al mis­con­duct al­le­ga­tions against a se­nior Con­ser­v­a­tive law­mak­er.

Last week, Chris Pinch­er re­signed as Con­ser­v­a­tive deputy chief whip af­ter com­plaints he groped two men at a pri­vate club. That trig­gered a se­ries of re­ports about past al­le­ga­tions lev­eled against Pinch­er and ques­tions about what John­son knew when he tapped Pinch­er for a se­nior job en­forc­ing par­ty dis­ci­pline.

John­son’s of­fice ini­tial­ly said he wasn’t aware of the pre­vi­ous ac­cu­sa­tions when he pro­mot­ed Pinch­er in Feb­ru­ary. By Mon­day, a spokesman said John­son did know of the al­le­ga­tions — but they were “ei­ther re­solved or did not progress to a for­mal com­plaint.”

When a for­mer top civ­il ser­vant in the For­eign Of­fice con­tra­dict­ed that, say­ing John­son was briefed about a 2019 al­le­ga­tion that re­sult­ed in a for­mal com­plaint, John­son’s of­fice said the prime min­is­ter had for­got­ten about a brief­ing on the is­sue.

It was all too much for min­is­ters who have been sent on­to ra­dio and TV to de­fend the gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion, on­ly to find it change.

Bim Afo­la­mi, who quit as Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty vice chair­man on Tues­day, said he had been will­ing to give John­son the ben­e­fit of the doubt — un­til the Pinch­er af­fair.

“The dif­fi­cul­ty is not over­all the pro­gram of the gov­ern­ment. … The gov­ern­ment has done a lot of pos­i­tive things that unite the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty,” he said. “The prob­lem is char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty in Down­ing Street, and I think that peo­ple in the Con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty and peo­ple in the coun­try know that.”

But Paul Drexler, chair of the In­ter­na­tion­al Cham­bers of Com­merce, warned that soar­ing food and en­er­gy prices are reach­ing cri­sis pro­por­tions and need to be ad­dressed by a leader who isn’t dis­tract­ed.

“I would say the most im­por­tant thing to do is to feed peo­ple who are hun­gry,” he told the BBC. “I mean that is a burn­ing plat­form at the mo­ment. The poor­est in our so­ci­ety are go­ing to be starv­ing to death the sec­ond half of this year. That needs to be ad­dressed.”

John­son’s op­po­nents in the par­ty hope more Cab­i­net min­is­ters will fol­low Sunak and Javid, though for now oth­er top of­fi­cials — in­clud­ing For­eign Sec­re­tary Liz Truss, De­fense Sec­re­tary Ben Wal­lace and Home Sec­re­tary Pri­ti Pa­tel — are stay­ing put.

Op­po­nents are al­so try­ing to force an­oth­er no-con­fi­dence vote over the prime min­is­ter. The ex­ist­ing rules re­quire 12 months be­tween such votes, but the rules are made by a par­ty com­mit­tee and can be changed. Elec­tions for that com­mit­tee’s ex­ec­u­tive are due in the next few weeks.