Boris Johnson was revealed today as Britain's next Prime Minister and the man with the task of uniting the nation around his Brexit policy as the October 31 deadline moves rapidly closer.
He beat his rival, Jeremy Hunt, by 92,153 votes to 46,656 and said it was an "extraordinary honour and privilege" to be elected Tory leader.
He promised to usher in a new "spirit of can do" and "get Brexit done".
"I say to all the doubters: Dude, we are going to energise the country, we are going to get Brexit done," he said.
Earlier in the day, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, invited people to join him in praying that those in governance would have "wisdom, insight and concern for the common good".
His prayer reads:
God of eternal love and power,
save our Parliamentary Democracy,
protect our High Court of Parliament and all its members from partiality and prejudice,
that they may walk humbly the path of kindness, justice and mercy.
Give them wisdom, insight and a concern for the common good.
The weight of their calling is too much to bear in their own strength,
therefore we pray earnestly, Father,
send them help from your Holy Place,
and be their tower of strength.
Lord, graciously hear us.
Amen
London City Mission CEO Graham Miller was among the Christians congratulating Johnson on his win. He called on him to lead with "justice and integrity". He tweeted: "Well done Mr Johnson. Londoners will be praying for you. London welcomes all kinds of people; Bangladeshis, Polish, South Africans, Pakistanis, Nigerians, New Yorkers as citizens and even leaders. We hope you'll continue to lead us all with justice and integrity."
Johnson has no shortage of critics to win round, though. George Pitcher, a Church of England vicar and Guardian columnist, has been vocal in his criticism of Johnson and called on churches to speak out against him during the leadership contest.
Writing in the Guardian, he called him an "amoral" man, "Trump-lite" and a "golden calf" with "no sense of humility or public duty".
"The charge sheet against Boris Johnson is well rehearsed. He is a serial liar, philanderer and shirker," he wrote.
He continued: "He was fired from the Times for making up quotes as a reporter, and as an opposition spokesman for lying to his leader about an affair; a spendthrift mayor of London, who relied on his deputies while he played to the gallery with vanity projects; incompetent beyond belief as foreign secretary; said to have deliberately misled the people on the post-Brexit economy; and a provocateur of racism and hate crime through his casual insults of our ethnic minorities.
"That's before we get to the vacuous promises of what he'd do next with the British economy."
Pitcher was also excoriating about the Church of England's silence on the prospect of Johnson becoming the next Prime Minister throughout the leadership contest. "So why has the Church of England nothing to say about the impending triumph of the Trump-lite Johnson?" he wrote in the Guardian.
"Possibly because we resile instinctively from lecturing even our oldest chums in the Tory party about morality. One huge reason for that will be the moral turpitude of the church in recent decades, with the grotesque revelations about the sexual abuse of minors, overseen by uninterested or acquiescent bishops, which has finally ended any presumption in respectable society that we should be the go-to source for moral direction."
Writing in the Yorkshire Post before the result was announced, the Bishop of Ripon, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, called on the next Prime Minister to listen to the voices of people in the North "on the ground" and not through the filter of a "Westminster echo-chamber".
"Political life is always challenging, and each generation has to face the reality it inherits. To do this requires wisdom, patience and courage. Sadly I don't see much of that in our present political leadership, and we are all the poorer for it," she said.
"If our new Prime Minister is going to be even mildly effective, they will have to divest themselves of a London-centric mindset, and learn to walk in Yorkshire wellies.
"That is not going to be easy. While they contemplate that particular challenge, it requires us to do some work too, by asking ourselves who we are, and who we want to be at this time? Debates about identity are relentless, and ironically can lack focus because there are a lot of competing narratives."
She added: "Despite a knock-back from the Government, Yorkshire devolution must remain on the table."
One fan, though, was Donald Trump who tweeted that Johnson would be "great" as PM.
