The partygate scandal indirectly led to him stepping down as prime minister last year. And the same topic led to his departure Friday.
Johnson was being investigated by Parliament’s privileges committee over whether he misled lawmakers about “partygate.” The committee had the power to recommend Johnson be suspended for more than 10 days, potentially triggering a local election in which he would have to fight for his parliamentary seat.
Instead, after receiving the committee’s findings, he resigned first.
In a statement, he branded the process a “kangaroo court” and a “witch hunt” led by “deeply prejudicial” lawmakers.
Though the committee is chaired by Harriet Harman, a veteran member of the opposition Labour Party, four of its seven members are from Johnson’s own Conservative Party.
In response to the resignation announcement, the committee said Johnson had “impugned the integrity” of the House of Commons with his attack. It said it would meet Monday “to conclude the inquiry and to publish its report promptly.”
Illegally blond: Boris Johnson’s political career
- June 2001 – elected member of Parliament
- Nov. 2004 – fired as senior official after affair allegation
- May 2008 – elected London mayor; reelected in 2012
- June 2016 – spearheads successful Brexit campaign
- July 2016 – appointed foreign secretary
- July 2018 – quits, criticizes Prime Minister Theresa May
- July 2019 – elected prime minister to replace May
- Sept. 2019 – suspends Parliament to push through Brexit legislation, suspension later ruled unlawful
- Dec. 2019 – wins landslide election victory
- Nov. 2021 – first partygate allegations surface, police later find Johnson broke the law
- July 2022 – resigns as prime minister
- June 2023 – resigns as member of Parliament
Party problems
Johnson laced his parting message with a broadside toward current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a former rival who was instrumental in his downfall last year.
“When I left office last year the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened,” he said. “Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do.”
On Monday, Johnson accused Sunak of “talking rubbish” in a related dispute playing out in public.
The former leader’s departure, and the seemingly connected resignations of two allies, creates a major headache for Sunak.
Trailing in the polls, he now faces contests for three Conservative parliamentary seats, offering momentum to Labour ahead of nationwide elections next year that it’s projected to win.
Conservative poll ratings slipped into decline during the final months of Johnson’s tenure and have not recovered since, with Labour now frequently placing 20 points ahead.
It’s far from the first time the Eton and Oxford-educated Johnson has left his post unceremoniously, having been fired by both British newspaper The Times in 1987 and then the Conservative Party in 2004 over alleged impropriety.
Nevertheless, his bombastic approach helped make him a household name as a lawmaker, mayor of London, foreign secretary and then prime minister. The self-declared liberal, branded a shameless opportunist by opponents, was also the chief Brexiteer in 2016.
