Boris Johnson steps down as MP: Former prime minister’s assertion in full

Boris Johnson has introduced he’s standing down as an MP with rapid impact – claiming that he’s being “driven out” of politics.

On Friday, the previous prime minister launched a 1,030 phrase assertion saying his decision to quit as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip – a seat he has held since 2015.

Politics live: Boris Johnson quits saying privileges committee wants to ‘drive me out of parliament’

Here’s his assertion in full:

I’ve obtained a letter from the Privileges Committee making it clear – a lot to my amazement – that they’re decided to make use of the proceedings towards me to drive me out of parliament.

They have nonetheless not produced a shred of proof that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.

They know completely effectively that once I spoke within the Commons I used to be saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like some other minister.

They know that I corrected the document as quickly as potential; they usually know that I and each different senior official and minister – together with the present prime minister after which occupant of the identical constructing, Rishi Sunak – believed that we have been working lawfully collectively.

I’ve been an MP since 2001. I take my tasks critically. I didn’t lie, and I consider that of their hearts the committee comprehend it.

But they’ve wilfully chosen to disregard the reality as a result of from the outset their objective has not been to find the reality, or genuinely to know what was in my thoughts once I spoke within the Commons.

Their objective from the start has been to search out me responsible, whatever the info. This is the very definition of a kangaroo court docket.

Most members of the committee – particularly the chair – had already expressed deeply prejudicial remarks about my guilt earlier than they’d even seen the proof. They ought to have recused themselves.

In retrospect it was naive and trusting of me to suppose that these proceedings may very well be remotely helpful or truthful. But I used to be decided to consider within the system, and in justice, and to vindicate what I knew to be the reality.

It was the identical religion within the impartiality of our techniques that led me to fee Sue Gray. It is obvious that my religion has been misplaced.

Of course, it fits the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the SNP to do no matter they will to take away me from parliament.

Sadly, as we noticed in July final yr, there are at the moment some Tory MPs who share that view.

I’m not alone in pondering that there’s a witch hunt underway, to take revenge for Brexit and in the end to reverse the 2016 referendum consequence.

My elimination is the mandatory first step, and I consider there was a concerted try and carry it about.

I’m afraid I not consider that it’s any coincidence that Sue Gray – who investigated gatherings in Number 10 – is now the chief of workers designate of the Labour chief.

Nor do I consider that it’s any coincidence that her supposedly neutral chief counsel, Daniel Stilitz KC, turned out to be a powerful Labour supporter who repeatedly tweeted private assaults on me and the federal government.

When I left workplace final yr the federal government was solely a handful of factors behind within the polls. That hole has now massively widened.

Just just a few years after profitable the largest majority in nearly half a century, that majority is now clearly in danger.

Our occasion wants urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its perception in what this nation can do.

We want to indicate how we’re benefiting from Brexit and we’d like within the subsequent months to be setting out a pro-growth and pro-investment agenda.

We want to chop enterprise and private taxes – and never simply as pre-election gimmicks – reasonably than endlessly placing them up.

We should not be afraid to be a correctly Conservative authorities.

Why have we so passively deserted the prospect of a Free Trade Deal with the US? Why have we junked measures to assist folks into housing or to scrap EU directives or to advertise animal welfare?

We must ship on the 2019 manifesto, which was endorsed by 14 million folks. We ought to do not forget that greater than 17 million voted for Brexit.

I’m now being pressured out of parliament by a tiny handful of individuals, with no proof to again up their assertions, and with out the approval even of Conservative occasion members not to mention the broader citizens.

I consider {that a} harmful and unsettling precedent is being set.

The Conservative Party has the time to get better its mojo and its ambition and to win the subsequent election. I had appeared ahead to offering enthusiastic assist as a backbench MP. Harriet Harman’s committee has got down to make that goal fully untenable.

The committee’s report is riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice however underneath their absurd and unjust course of I’ve no formal capacity to problem something they are saying.

The Privileges Committee is there to guard the privileges of parliament. That is a vital job. They shouldn’t be utilizing their powers – which have solely been very not too long ago designed – to mount what’s plainly a political hitjob on somebody they oppose.

It is in nobody’s curiosity, nonetheless, that the method the Committee has launched ought to proceed for a single day additional.

So I’ve immediately written to my affiliation in Uxbridge and South Ruislip to say that I’m stepping down forthwith and triggering a direct by-election.

I’m very sorry to go away my great constituency. It has been an enormous honour to serve them, each as mayor and MP.

But I’m proud that after what’s cumulatively a 15 yr stint I’ve helped to ship amongst different issues an enormous new railway within the Elizabeth Line and full funding for an exquisite new state-of-the-art hospital for Hillingdon, the place enabling works have already begun.

I additionally stay vastly pleased with all that we achieved in my time in workplace as Prime Minister: getting Brexit completed, profitable the largest majority for 40 years and delivering the quickest vaccine roll out of any main European nation, in addition to main international assist for Ukraine.

It could be very unhappy to be leaving parliament – not less than for now – however above all I’m bewildered and appalled that I will be pressured out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias.