Boris Johnson has pulled out of the Conservative leadership race.

His withdrawal leaves the path to No 10 open for Rishi Sunak.

The former prime minister had the public backing of 59 Tory MPs, but had to reach 100 to proceed in the race.

Path to No 10 opens for Sunak – live updates

Mr Sunak has more than 150 backers, a significant lead over Penny Mordaunt, who has 25. If he wins, the former chancellor will become the third prime minister this year.

We’ll find out at 2pm who has made it on to the ballot – and if Mr Sunak is the only one to reach the required threshold of 100 MPs, he will automatically become prime minister.

You can find out about today’s key timings here, with live coverage on Sky News throughout the day.

In his statement, Mr Johnson said he had “cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations”, but came to the conclusion that “this is simply not the right time”.

He said he had “reached out” to leadership rivals Mr Sunak and Ms Mordaunt to see if they could work together in the national interest, but it had not proved possible.

Mr Johnson added that although he was “attracted” to run because of the support from his colleagues, “you can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament”.

In response, Mr Sunak tweeted: “Although he has decided not to run for PM again, I truly hope he continues to contribute to public life at home and abroad.”

One of Mr Johnson’s key allies told Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby that he had said he thinks two-thirds of the party are against him and that he would be unable to govern like Liz Truss.

Another ally said the anti-Johnson coalition in parliament is “very loud” and “very motivated”.

The first Johnson backer to publicly switch to Mr Sunak was Nadhim Zahawi, the former chancellor, who tweeted “a day is a long time in politics”.

He came out for Mr Johnson this morning.

Ms Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, has the public backing of 24 MPs. She needs 100 by 2pm tomorrow to stay in the race.

Read more:
Why Johnson dropped out – in his own words
Who are bookies backing to be the next PM?

On Sunday, several long-time allies of Mr Johnson – including Suella Braverman and Steve Baker – threw their support behind Mr Sunak.

Mr Baker, the former head of backbench Brexiteers, warned that a potential comeback by Mr Johnson would be a “guaranteed disaster”.

Mr Sunak had already met the threshold needed to make it to the next stage of the race before his candidacy announcement this morning.

Mr Johnson flew back from a holiday in the Caribbean on Saturday and did not formally announce his candidacy in the race.

He secured the public backing from big names in the cabinet – including Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.