Boris Johnson makes last-minute representations to Privileges Committee

Before the Privileges Committee releases a report that is anticipated to conclude that Boris Johnson purposefully misled Parliament, he has submitted a last-minute submission to the committee.

At 11.57 p.m. on Monday, the committee said that it was “dealing with” the former prime minister’s submissions.

After Mr. Johnson resigned from Parliament on Friday after receiving a draft of its conclusions, it was anticipated that this week would see the publication of its report investigating whether he had misled to MPs regarding the Downing Street partygate affair.

He accused the committee, which was led by Harriet Harman but had a majority of Conservatives, of “bias” and compared it to a “kangaroo court” in a 1,000-word departure statement.

Before Mr. Johnson’s last-minute interventions, the publication had already been postponed until the end of the week, allegedly due to printing issues in Parliament.

On Tuesday, a committee spokeswoman stated: “A letter from Mr. Johnson with additional representations was received by the committee at 11.57 p.m.

“The committee is dealing with these and will report promptly.”

According to the Times, the Privileges Committee dismissed his argument that senior authorities had told him that Covid guidelines and standards had been followed in No 10.

According to the newspaper, a senior aide actually cautioned him against telling the Commons that social distance rules were followed.

After his abrupt retirement, Mr. Johnson got into a public argument over his resignation honors list with former ally Rishi Sunak.

The Prime Minister claimed that his previous employer pushed him to disregard the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission.

However, Mr. Johnson’s supporters claimed that he had “secretly blocked” Nadine Dorries, a former culture secretary, and other loyalists from peerages on his resignation list.

The former prime minister released a statement saying: “Rishi Sunak is talking rubbish.

“To honour these peerages it was not necessary to overrule Holac – but simply to ask them to renew their vetting, which was a mere formality.”

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said it is “entirely untrue to say that anyone from No 10 attempted to remove or change” the list, while a Downing Street source claimed the Cabinet Office had made it clear to Mr. Johnson that there is no re-vetting procedure.

Despite the Privileges Committee’s anticipated findings this week, Mr. Johnson vowed, paraphrasing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, “I’ll be back.”

In the Daily Express, Mr Johnson said “We must fully deliver on Brexit and on the 2019 manifesto. We must smash Labour at the next election.

“Nothing less than absolute victory and total Brexit will do – and as the great Arnold Schwarzenegger said, I’ll be back.”

The statement was reminiscent of Mr. Johnson’s sign-off during his final appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions last year, when he told MPs, “Hasta la vista, baby”—the catchphrase used by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cyborg character in the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Similarly, that allusion allowed room for a potential comeback, but the former MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip sat on the opposition benches until resigning from the Commons on Friday.

In the meantime, Sir Keir Starmer issued a warning that the UK’s reputation abroad is being harmed by Tory infighting between the two formerly allies and is scaring away investment.

The Labour leader told business chiefs at London Tech Week: “There’s a deeper price because there’s a reputation hit to the UK.

“I think there’s an economic hit as well, many investors said to me, we’re not investing in the UK right now because we don’t see the conditions of certainty and stability we need in order to invest.”