The Tory MP Nadine Dorries, a staunch Johnson supporter, has said that it will “now be impossible to avoid” a general election, suggesting that if Johnson had stood for leadership again, he would have “already had a mandate from the people”, having won the 2019 election.

Another Conservative MP to back an election is Christopher Chope, also a Johnson loyalist, who suggested earlier today that the Tory party is now “ungovernable”, adding: “If the people who are now seeking the crown want to have the respect that comes from a mandate, the best way to get that respect is winning a mandate from the people, and that’s why I think a general election is essentially the only answer.”

On the opposite side of the Commons, Labour leader Keir Starmer stepped up calls for Britain to go to the polls after Liz Truss stepped down last week, stating that the Tories “do not have a mandate to put the country through yet another experiment” and that “the British public deserve a proper say on the country’s future.”

His demands were echoed by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who said that a general election is now a “democratic imperative”.

Calls for a general election are growing – but how and when could one take place?