Political earthquake in the United Kingdom: former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the man of Brexit, one of the most charismatic leaders, angrily announced on Friday June 9 that he was leaving his post as an MP with ” immediate effect “. In his resignation letter, he accused the parliamentary committee on “partygate” – the celebrations in Downing Street during the pandemic – of fomenting his downfall.
He says to himself “amazed” to see that she “is determined to use its lawsuit against me to oust me from Parliament”. The commission, which completed its report and communicated it to Mr. Johnson a few days ago, was to determine whether the ex-prime minister was lying to elected officials when, still in office between the end of 2021 and mid-2022, he claimed that “all the rules were followed” in Downing Street during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The leader has always assured that he acted “ with sincerity” when he attended farewell parties or birthday parties, unaware that he was breaking rules his own government had enacted.
“I did not lie, and I believe that deep down, the members of the commission know it. But they deliberately chose to ignore the truth because (…) their goal from the beginning is to convict me. (…) This is the very definition of a puppet court., continues Boris Johnson. And as if his words weren’t toxic enough, as if he wanted to throw a pinned grenade over his shoulder as he left, he continues: “I’m not the only one who thinks there’s a witch hunt going on, to get back at Brexit and ultimately overturn the 2016 referendum result.”
Trumpian accents
With Trumpian accents, Boris Johnson takes the posture of the victim and also makes Rishi Sunak, the current tenant of Downing Street, directly responsible for the setbacks of the Conservatives in the polls – forgetting in passing to point out his responsibility, and that, obvious , by Liz Truss, ephemeral Tory Prime Minister in the fall of 2022.
“We have to show how we get the most out of Brexit. (…) Why have we so passively abandoned the prospect of a free trade agreement with the United States? », he asks again, the day after Mr. Sunak’s visit to Washington, during which the possibility of this commercial treaty was effectively buried. But the latter was a Brexiter fantasy: it was unrealistic.
What Mr Johnson does not say in his angry missive is that the Inquiry Committee is Conservative-majority – so not opposed to him on political grounds. And that the conclusions she likely reached about him – he lied to Parliament about “partygate” –, once made public, would have prompted a vote in the House of Commons on his temporary suspension as an MP.
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