The UK’s former Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned early on Saturday, June 10, as a member of Parliament, accusing the parliamentary probe into the partygate scandal of driving him out.
He announced the sudden decision after being sent an advance copy of a report by the Commons privileges committee which informed him that it had found him guilty of deliberately “misleading” parliament over his Covid partygate statements.
In a 1,000-word response, he attacked the privileges committee which has a Tory majority but is chaired by a Labour MP, Harriet Harman.
In a long angry statement, Johnson said that a “kangaroo court” was bent on finding him “guilty, regardless of facts” despite the details of the report not yet known and that the Labour MP Harriet Harman, was “egregiously biased” against him.
Johnson’s resignation triggers a by-election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, a West London constituency where Boris had a majority of 7,210.
The former prime minister had defended himself saying that he had given wrong information to the Commons but he had not lied deliberately and that he had corrected the record.
“I have received a letter from the Privileges Committee making it clear – much to my amazement – that they are determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of Parliament”, Johnson said.
“They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons”, he alleged.
He alleged that the committee’s “purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts. This is the very definition of a kangaroo court.
“Sadly, as we saw in July last year, there are currently some Tory MPs who share that view. I am not alone in thinking that there is a witch hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result”.
“My removal is the necessary first step, and I believe there has been a concerted attempt to bring it about. I am afraid I no longer believe that it is any coincidence that Sue Gray – who investigated gatherings in Number 10 – is now the chief of staff designate of the Labour leader”, Johnson said.
“I am now being forced out of Parliament by a tiny handful of people, with no evidence to back up their assertions, and without the approval even of Conservative party members, let alone the wider electorate. I believe that a dangerous and unsettling precedent is being set”, he claimed.
Johnson also attacked the current prime Minister Rishi Sunak. “When I left office last year, the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened. “Just a few years after winning the biggest majority in almost half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk. Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do”, he said.
“It is very sad to be leaving Parliament – at least for now – but above all, I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias”, Johnson added.