BORIS Johnson is officially no longer an MP, ending an eight-year spell in parliament - much of which was coloured by his political manoeuvrings and ambitions.
The Treasury on Monday evening appointed the former prime minister the Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern, which under Westminster’s archaic rules, means he is no longer a serving member of parliament.
When he announced his intention to resign from the House of Commons on Friday, Johnson said he was leaving “at least for now” – indicating he may be plotting a political comeback.
His final days as an MP have been defined by a mug-slinging match with the Prime Minister over his resignation honours list – which awarded allies and aides implicated in the partygate scandal.
Johnson announced he would quit parliament after he was handed the result of a Commons probe which is understood to have found he lied to MPs over Covid rule breaking in Downing Street during lockdown.
He branded the committee of MPs charged with investigating him a “kangaroo court” and said he was “bewildered and appalled” by its findings.
The Prime Minister is currently embroiled in a row with Johnson over the former MP’s honours list.
Rishi Sunak has claimed Johnson asked him to overrule the House of Lords Appointments Commission which is said to have recommended against ennobling some of the former PM’s allies.
Johnson’s camp accused Sunak of having “secretly blocked” the peerages of former culture secretary Nadine Dorries and other allies in his resignation list.
The MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip on London’s western border since 2015, Johnson has dominated the UK political scene for much of his time in Parliament.
He backed the Vote Leave campaign in 2016 and his endorsement was seen as an early indicator Brexit was more likely to happen than it had first appeared.
On David Cameron’s resignation following the Brexit vote, he was seen as the front-runner to replace him before his leadership pitch was sunk by former ally Michael Gove.
He served as foreign secretary under Theresa May before quitting in 2018 and, after a brief spell on the backbenches he was elected to the Tory leadership in 2019.
His victory came after May’s punishing months struggling to get her Brexit deal through the Commons because she had gambled away the Conservative majority with a snap election in 2017.
Johnson quickly came up against the same problems and called an election in December 2019, which was won by the Conservatives with a huge majority on a key pledge to “Get Brexit Done”.
The Covid pandemic hit Johnson’s premiership early on and came to define his leadership and spelled the end for his downfall.
He eventually quit as prime minister in 2022 after mounting scandals around Covid rule-breaking and a storm around a Tory MP who was accused of sexually harassing two people at a private members’ club began to mount.
Accumulated scandals triggered mass resignations from his government, resulting in his on July 7.
