By Jessica Frank-Keyes
Politics has “moved on” from the drama of Boris Johnson, a senior cabinet minister has claimed amid a row over the former prime minister’s resignation as an MP and honours list.
Energy secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday that while former London mayor Johnson possessed “many qualities”, No 10 was under “new management”.
He said: “I think the world has moved on from what was quite a dramatic period under Brexit and of course under the issues related to Covid, the vaccines and the rest of it.”
Johnson dramatically quit Parliament on Friday, sparking a by-election in his marginal seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, after being given a critical report by the Privileges Committee into claims he recklessly or deliberately misled the House of Commons over the Partygate affair.
In an explosive resignation letter, the former PM branded the panel a “kangaroo court” and laid into successor Rishi Sunak, accusing his government of ditching the 2019 manifesto pledges that secured a majority.
Johnson has also faced controversy in a dispute over claims names were removed from his peerages submission, while government insists Sunak and No 10 had nothing to do with it.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner branded it a “plot to reward the carousel of cronies”.
Boris return?
Shapps also insisted to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that speculation about Johnson making a swift return to Westminster was misplaced and “in the realms of the hypothetical”.
He defended the Commons’s Privileges Committee, chaired by Labour MP Harriet Harman, and denied claims the probe was motivated by a plot to reverse Brexit.
But Johnson ally and staunch Brexiteer Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg – who was knighted in his former bosses’ resignation honours list – claimed he could contest a future leadership bid.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Sir Jacob warned of a Tory “civil war” if the party blocked Johnson from standing again as an MP.
It follows speculation the ex-PM could attempt to be selected in friend Nadine Dorries’s Mid Bedfordshire seat – which she vacated just hours before in her own shock resignation.
Tory MP Tobias Ellwood allied himself with Shapps, warning Johnson’s attack was “akin to mutiny” and marked a “grave moment for our party” in comments to GB News.
Ex-Johnson spin doctor Guto Harri claimed his old boss had been “hounded out of politics”.
Labour blast ‘Tory chaos’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called for a snap general election after Johnson, Dorries and Nigel Adams – quit the Commons within 24 hours, triggering by-elections in their seats.
The party will be preparing to throw the kitchen sink at its candidate Danny Beales standing in Uxbridge in a bid to steal the key target from their Conservative rivals.
Pat McFadden, shadow chief Treasury secretary, said the country will be “bedevilled by chaos and instability” if the Tory “chaos” is allowed to continue.
Nigel Farage, ex-Ukip and Brexit Party leader-turned-broadcaster, said there is potential for an insurgent party to emerge and claimed more than 10 Tory MPs had been in touch.
It came as Labour claimed families were facing a £7,000 ‘Tory mortgage penalty’ following economic instability and interest rate rises sparked by the Truss-Kwarteng mini-budget.
A Tory spokesman said: “The Conservatives are getting on with the job of halving inflation, growing the economy, and reducing debt.”
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