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Boris Johnson said he was “confused and scared.”
CNN
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Boris Johnson has resigned as a member of the British Parliament after accusing a House of Commons investigation of trying to “kick me out,” UK’s PA Media reported on Friday, citing a statement from the former prime minister.
He said he was “confused and amazed” after receiving a letter from the committee, which is investigating whether he lied to British lawmakers about parties breaking the lockdown during the pandemic, known as ‘Partygate. ‘
Johnson, one of the main architects of Brexit, said that the letter explained, to my surprise, that they were determined to use the proceedings against me to expel me from Parliament,” according to PA Media.
The former leader said the committee’s Partygate report, which has yet to be released publicly, “is full of errors and smacks of bias but under their stupid and unreasonable process I have no formal ability to challenge anything they said.”
“I am writing today to my association in Uxbridge and South Ruislip to say that I will be leaving with immediate effect and will call for an urgent by-election,” he said.
Last year, the Metropolitan Police issued Johnson and then-finance minister Rishi Sunak – now Prime Minister – with fines for attending a Downing Street gathering during the Covid-19 lockdown. , making Johnson the first sitting UK prime minister to be found guilty. to break the law.
This March, Johnson admitted to the committee that he had misled Parliament about what had happened, but admitted that he did not mean to.
His resignation means Johnson is writing the script to the end of his political career himself. Instead of facing a by-election – if the investigation into his behavior during the pandemic calls for it – or risk losing his seat at the next general election, he will avoid the wrath of public rejection. .
The fact that he will not be kicked out of parliament but will leave on his own terms helps Johnson and his supporters tell a story: That Johnson did great things in office, was betrayed and then pressured by people like Sunak. If only he could have returned, the next general election and the fate of the Conservative party would have been saved, they said.
Johnson’s current approval ratings suggest that may not be true. But the point is that now we will never know. And that’s just fine with Johnson and his teammates.
In a lengthy statement on Friday, Johnson said he was the victim of “a witch hunt” seeking revenge “for Brexit and ultimately reversing the result of the 2016 referendum.”
Johnson also criticized Sunak’s government, saying that when he left office last year “the government was just a few points behind in the polls” but “that gap is now widening.”
“Just a few years after winning the largest majority in nearly half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk. Our party urgently needs to regain its sense of momentum and its belief in what the country can do,” he said.
Johnson’s entire political career was built on his personality. He is the happy, optimistic Conservative that even a liberal city like London would tolerate as mayor.
His TV persona – part clown; part pseudo-intellectual; part loveable-but-out-of-touch-poshboy – won Johnson fans beyond the traditional Conservative base. He loves being loved, and his supporters in the Conservative party still believe he is a once-in-a-generation vote winner who will win the next election if he is still in power.
But Johnson is also desperate to be taken seriously – and his time as prime minister has offered him plenty of opportunities. Brexit, arguably his greatest victory, will require diplomacy and statecraft that eluded his predecessor Theresa May.
The Covid-19 pandemic has put matters of life and death in the hands of the nation’s leaders. Johnson was criticized for being slow to act at first. But the rapid rollout of the vaccine in the UK – made possible by a huge gamble taken by Johnson – boosted his popularity at a critical moment in his presidency.
Johnson also played a leading role in supporting Ukraine. He was so famous that some streets in Kyiv were renamed after him.
This Johnson – the one who won the election, posed the biggest policy issue in a generation, stood tall on the world stage – is what he wants to be remembered for. Not the man who broke his own Covid rules and became a political irrelevance.