Boris Johnson submits last-ditch letter to Partygate inquiry
Boris Johnson has submitted a last-ditch letter to MPs investigating whether he misled parliament over lockdown parties.
The privileges committee said it received the letter at 11.57pm on Monday, while the full report is expected to be published later this week.
In a statement, the former prime minister lashed out at the ‘absurdly unfair rules’.
He said: ‘The privileges committee should publish their report and let the world judge their nonsense.
‘They have no excuse for delay. Their absurdly unfair rules do not even allow any criticism of their findings.
‘I have made my views clear to the committee in writing – and will do so more widely when they finally publish.’
He took aim at the committee’s chair and Labour grandee Harriet Harman, branding it a ‘kangaroo court’ during his dramatic exit as MP last Friday.
The panel rejected Mr Johnson’s defence that senior officials advised him Covid rules and guidance had been followed.
He also launched into a public spat with arch political nemesis Rishi Sunak who he blasted as ‘secretly blocking’ the peerage of his loyal follower Nadine Dorries.
Mr Sunak said his predecessor wanted him to ignore the recommendations of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, but Mr Johnson retorted: ‘Rishi 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.’
A Downing Street source said the Cabinet Office made it clear to Mr Johnson there is no re-vetting process.
Mr Johnson’s spokesperson said it is ‘entirely untrue to say that anyone from No 10 attempted to remove or change’ the list.
The Tories are now faced with three upcoming by-elections after Mr Johnson, Ms Dorries and Nigel Adams sensationally quit.
But the by-election in Ms Dorries’s Mid Bedfordshire constituency is delayed because she has not formally resigned.
Despite quitting as MP, Mr Johnson quoted Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator when he said: ‘I’ll be back.’
It echoed his final appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions last year, when he told MPs ‘Hasta la vista, baby’.
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