Johnson’s resignation means Sunak’s party faces special elections this summer.
Boris Johnson has given up his seat in the UK Parliament, calling the group of lawmakers investigating his behavior and attacking the policies of current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak “kangaroo court”.
The former Prime Minister, who blames Sunak for the role he played in his own ouster last year, said Parliament’s Privileges Committee had struck a “political bull’s eye” and accused its leader, Labor MP Harriet Harman, of “egregious bias”.
The committee did not respond to a request for comment. The panel has investigated whether Johnson misled lawmakers with his knowledge of breaches of Covid-19 rules by officials.
“The committee’s report is riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of bias,” Johnson said in a statement released late Friday. He was privately briefed this week on their findings, which are not yet public. “I am now being pushed out of Parliament by a tiny handful of people,” he said.
Johnson’s resignation sparks a challenging special election for Sunak in a seat held by the ruling Conservative Party by a relatively narrow majority of about 7,000 in 2019.
The departure also reignites a feud between the two men, which has been smoldering since Sunak resigned as Treasury Secretary in protest at Johnson’s leadership last year. This move led to Johnson’s resignation as prime minister.
In his statement, Johnson made no compromises in his diagnosis of the electoral weaknesses of the Conservative Party, which has trailed the main opposition party, the Labor Party, by double digits in national polls for months.
On the day Sunak returned from a two-day visit to Washington, Johnson asked why the administration had “so passively abandoned the prospect of a free trade deal with the US.” He said ministers must cut corporate and personal taxes and also questioned why the government had “missed” measures to help people buy their own homes.
“We must not be afraid of being a truly conservative government,” Johnson said. “When I left office last year, the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. This gap has now increased massively. Our party urgently needs to regain its momentum and belief in the potential of this country.”
Johnson’s resignation means Sunak’s party faces special elections this summer, which could dashed his hopes of catching up with the opposition Labor Party in opinion polls ahead of general elections in January 2025.
He resigned after a series of rapid developments on Friday that plunged the Tories into even more political chaos.
Nadine Dorries, a key Johnson ally, also resigned from her Mid Bedfordshire seat after being denied a peerage on Johnson’s resignation honor list. Bill Cash, the longtime Conservative MP and arch-Eurosceptic, announced he would step down in the next election after Johnson made him Order of the Companions of Honour.
That list was released late Friday afternoon, sparking further controversy within the Tories as Johnson had recommended awards for a number of key supporters, including former ministers Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel.
On Saturday, Nigel Adams announced he was resigning as Member of Parliament with immediate effect, sparking a third by-election after Johnson and Dorries.
The privileges body wanted to find out whether Johnson deliberately misled lawmakers when he repeatedly denied rule-breaking occurred during a series of gatherings at Downing Street – collectively known as “Partygate” – during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns . He later apologized to the board after being fined himself for breaking the rules. Sunak was also fined.
Johnson claimed his downfall was engineered by Brexit opponents, who in his statement launched furious attacks on the opposition Labor Party, as well as on Sunak and Sue Gray, the officer whose investigation into Partygate also played a big part in his downfall.
“There is a witch hunt underway to avenge Brexit and ultimately reverse the outcome of the 2016 referendum,” said Johnson, one of the key architects of the winning Leave campaign.
While Johnson’s immediate political career is over, he hinted that he might try to return at some point. “It is very sad to leave Parliament – at least for the time being,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this article was not edited by NDTV staff and is published via a syndicated feed.)