• UK Boris Johnson resigns as Conservative MP over Partygate investigation

Boris Johnson has decided to reopen the box of thunder of the "tories" with his temporary farewell to Parliament and the threat of a political revenge in the purest Donald Trump style. In his resignation letter as deputy for the "Partygate" investigation, the former "premier" harshly attacked Rishi Sunak and accused him of betraying the conservative agenda with which he achieved his absolute majority in 2019.

"I am not alone in thinking that there is a witch hunt going on to exact revenge on Brexit and ultimately overturn the result of the 2016 referendum," Johnson wrote. "My replacement has been the first necessary step, and I think there has been a concerted effort to be able to achieve that."

"Why have we passively abandoned the prospect of a trade deal with the United States?" lamented Johnson. "Why have we decided to throw away the initiative to renounce EU directives? (...) We need to make the most of Brexit, and we need to do so in the coming months with a pro-growth, pro-investment agenda."

At the time of his resignation as an MP – after receiving the conclusions of the parliamentary committee that has stipulated that he deliberately lied when he said that Covid rules had not been violated in Downing Street – Johnson recalled how the Conservative Party was trailing in the polls "by only a handful of points" at the time of his resignation as Conservative leader and how "that distance has widened massively" since the arrival of Rishi Sunak to Downing Street, last October.

"A few years after winning the largest majority in almost half a century, we clearly risk losing it," warned Johnson, who thus extended his recipe for the next election. "Our party urgently needs to recapture momentum and conviction in what this country can do."

Johnson acknowledged his sadness at the moment of leaving Parliament "for now", which fueled speculation about his political "rentrée". The resignation of his seat for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which he held since 2015 after his double term as mayor of London, will force the call for special elections in which the possible Labour candidate, Danny Beales, leads to win.

The resignation as deputy of her ally Nadine Dorries in the conservative stronghold of Mid Besfordshire (where she had a comfortable majority of 24,000 votes) has triggered speculation about a possible candidacy of Johnson in another special election for that seat. Dorries, who had been nominated by Johnson himself to the House of Lords, submitted her resignation hours before her former leader slammed the door on her own.

On Monday the deadline for the presentation of the candidacies ends and at that moment the doubt will be cleared about how and when the political revenge of Johnson will take shape, who could also choose to wait for the general elections of 2024. The nomination of candidates has to be approved in any case by the Conservative Party, and the truth is that the former "premier" is running out of allies in its ranks beyond a handful of loyalists in the hard wing (despite still having the support of the majority of "Tories" voters).

Angela Rayner, number two of the Labour Party, criticized Johnson as "a coward who has lost respect for his voters". According to Ryaner, the former "premier's" decision to resign before the Partygate parliamentary committee announced its conclusions, has been a flight forward to avoid "the humiliation of a suspension as a parliamentarian".

The privileges committee, chaired by Labour's Harriet Harman (criticised by Johnson for her "blatant bias"), will finally meet on Monday and make its findings public in the coming days. The committee planned to recommend Johnson's temporary ten-day suspension for lying in the House of Commons, which would have automatically led to a special election in his constituency.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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