Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Dan Bloom

Boris Johnson falsely boasts he 'delivered every promise' in 'vengeful' farewell speech

Boris Johnson today falsely boasted he had “delivered on every single promise” in a defiant last big speech in Parliament.

Keir Starmer branded the Prime Minister a “vengeful squatter” as he gave a rambling 44-minute address to MPs - his last major one at the dispatch box before he quits on September 6.

An MP warned there is “growing evidence of corruption” in his government after he tabled a confidence motion - which Tories were expected to pass at 10pm tonight.

Opening the debate, Boris Johnson ’s statement veered from misleading statements to trumpeting his achievements and slurring the Labour Party.

At one point he suggested - without evidence - that Labour’s leader was working with the “deep state” to reverse Brexit and take the UK back into the EU. Keir Starmer has said he will not reverse Brexit.

At another, he said: “They constantly say we’re not going to build 40 new hospitals, well I can tell him we are”. The total includes redevelopments and new wings at existing hospitals.

Boris Johnson’s statement veered from misleading statements to trumpeting his achievements and slurring the Labour Party. (PRU/AFP via Getty Images)

And at another he said: "We got Brexit done and though the rejoiners and the revengers were left plotting and planning and biding their time - and I'll have more to say about the events of the last few weeks and months in due course - we delivered on every single one of our promises.”

The Tory government has, in fact, broken several of the promises it made in the 2019 election manifesto and several of the Tory leadership contenders have said so.

Manifesto pledges to keep the pensions triple lock, not raise National Insurance, and keep up foreign aid spending were all broken - to name only three.

Brexit negotiations are also not finished, with Britain moving to tear up the Northern Ireland protocol - part of the deal Boris Johnson co-wrote with the EU and signed.

Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge blasted the “abhorrent culture of tolerating bullying and sexual harassment from political allies”, adding: “There’s an endless list of incompetence and waste.

“Taxpayers’ money being tossed around like confetti with £16bn fraudulently squandered on Covid business support, shameful failures in ambulance waiting times, and 6million citizens waiting for hospital treatment.”

Saying the government “has no moral compass”, she went on: “It’s the creeping culture of corruption and the determination to close down those whose job it is to keep a check on executive power that makes this government unfit for evidence.

“There’s a growing body of evidence of corruption. Dodgy Russian money funding MPs and the Tory party. An explosion in illicit finance with Londongrad now the international capital for dirty money.

“Peerages for pals like [Tory donor Peter] Cruddas and [Russian-British tycoon Evgeny] Lebedev. Jobs for mates like James Wharton, to people from the PM’s city hall days. Contracts for cronies with only £0.2m of the £17.3bn contracts for PPE subject to open competition.”

In a light-hearted speech, the ousted PM joked Covid was caused by “distant misbehaviour involving bats or pangolins” and confessed he might be “more popular on the streets of Kyiv right now than I am in Kensington”.

Boris Johnson had left the debate by the time he was told 'there’s a growing body of evidence of corruption' (PRU/AFP via Getty Images)

He offered no apology and instead reeled off his achievements, boasting of Labour’s 2019 election defeat “we turned Redcar Bluecar” and “we sent the great blue Tory ferret so far up their left trouser leg they couldn't move.”

He also claimed the UK vaccine rollout was “so fast the EU commission actually tried to expropriate 5million doses of Astra to try to slow us down, it can be told. Shame is right.”

Loyalists queued up to praise the Tory leader - as right-wing No10 hopeful Liz Truss sat conspicuously by his side, despite him claiming he is not supporting any one candidate.

Sir Edward Leigh said attacks on the PM were “disgraceful” and he would be “completely loyal to him to the very end”. Michael Fabricant said the Tories were “making the same mistake the Labour Party made when they knifed Tony Blair.”

But Keir Starmer said Boris Johnson’s litany of disgraces had been “enabled by a corrupted Conservative Party ”.

He added: “This is not the summer for Downing Street to be occupied by a vengeful squatter mired in scandal.”

Keir Starmer said Boris Johnson’s litany of disgraces had been “enabled by a corrupted Conservative Party” (PA)

Ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, now an independent MP, accused Mr Johnson of a “fantasy tour of this country” while there were “more food banks than branches of McDonalds” and “big Pharma have made so much out of owning the patents of the vaccines”.

Mr Corbyn added: “His government is presiding over the enriching of the richest, the impoverishment of the poorest and the greatest job insecurity in industry after industry.

“He has created poverty, inequality and insecurity. That is his legacy.”

Boris Johnson spoke about his flight in a Typhoon fighter jet last week, before adding on the Tory leadership: "After three dynamic and exhilarating years in the cockpit, we will find a new leader and we will coalesce in loyalty around him or her.

"And the vast twin Rolls-Royce engines of our Tory message, our Conservative values, will roar on - strong public services on the left, and a dynamic free market enterprise economy on the right, each boosting the other and developing trillions of pounds of thrust.

"The reason we keep winning is we're the only party that understands the need for both. Whatever happens in this contest we will continue to fight for the lowest possible taxes and the lightest possible regulation."

Mr Johnson said Labour's problem is "they'd try to fly on one engine".

And in a bizarre passage on Brexit he said: “Some people will say as I leave office that this is the end of Brexit, oh yes.

"And the Leader of the Opposition and the deep state will prevail in its plot to haul us back into alignment with the EU as a prelude to our eventual return.

"And we on this side of the House will prove them wrong, won't we?"

The “deep state” is a conspiracy theory that claims the organs of the state are populated by secret networks of people working for their own ends.

The vote of no confidence came amid renewed opposition calls for the Prime Minister to step down immediately and hand over to a caretaker.

Labour said the PM had already "clocked off" from his job in No 10 by failing to lead Cobra meetings in response to the heatwave.

Cabinet Office minister Kit Malthouse, who has chaired the meetings, claimed it was unfair to criticise the PM who had been fully briefed on the situation.

Mr Johnson and his wife Carrie were at his grace-and-favour country retreat Chequers over the weekend where he hosted a party for friends.

Shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy said: "We think the Government ought to do a number of things: first is to turn up to work." She told Sky News the PM has "clearly clocked off", adding: "And so have many of his ministers in his Government."

It comes as video of Mr Johnson flying in a Typhoon fighter jet last week was released ahead of an address to business leaders at the Farnborough Air Show.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.