An ethics watchdog has found Boris
Johnson breached rules preventing misuse of contacts and access gained during
his time in public office.
The Guardian released information about Johnson's actions since he left office last month. According to the Boris Files, a treasure mine of records from the former prime minister's private office that the Guardian was able to view, he frequently disregarded regulations prohibiting him from using contacts he made while in office for personal benefit.
According to leaked documents, Johnson surreptitiously pushed the United Arab Emirates for a billion-dollar private enterprise. He also reportedly planned to utilize a powerful contact he had hosted on multiple occasions in No. 10 and senior Saudi government contacts he had met while serving as prime minister to propose the services of a consulting firm.
Following the publication of the Guardian's articles, Johnson received a letter from the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), the Whitehall watchdog, requesting an explanation of his contributions to the companies.
Johnson refused to answer specific questions or to provide factual denials to allegations of rule-breaking, while insisting all the rules had been followed at all times. His responses led Acoba’s chair, Isabel Doverty, to find him in breach of the rules.
On 15 September, Johnson responded to Acoba’s queries to say the stories were “based on material illegally hacked by a hostile state actor. That may explain why they contain so many assertions that are either false or misleading.”
He added:
“The committee may rest assured that Acoba rules were followed at all times.”
There is no proof that the files include inaccurate or deceptive material, according to The Guardian. Distributed Denial of Secrets, a US non-profit that archives data breaches, acquired the information. It has indicated it does not know the provenance of the leak.
Acoba wrote Johnson five detailed questions concerning his connections to Bia Advisory, the company vying for the billion-dollar investment from the United Arab Emirates, and Better Earth, a consulting firm seeking work with the Saudi government.
The watchdog sought to know if he had brought up the companies in his conversations with the Saudi ministers, which included Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the CEO of one of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth funds, and Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Johnson said he had not started work with Better Earth until Acoba had given the green light for him to join it, and that Bia Advisory had never been set up as a company. He did not address their questions about whether he might have mentioned the ventures to the foreign government representatives.
Acoba was frustrated by Johnson’s refusal to give straight answers. The watchdog tried to give him another week to answer and appealed to his standing as a former prime minister and a “reasonable expectation that you would respond fully and factually to my questions to dispel the suggestion that you acted in a manner contrary to your obligations under the rules”.
Writing to Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, Doverty said: “Mr Johnson is aggrieved that Acoba sought to investigate these allegations, given how the information behind them was obtained.” But she said there was a public interest in investigating any breach of the rules and a duty to do so.
She concluded:
“Mr Johnson’s lack of cooperation with Acoba and failure to deny the allegations has led me to report this to you as a breach of the government’s rules.”
Jones has declined to comment on what steps, if any, the government might take as a result.
Johnson has been contacted for comment.
What sanctions can the ethics watchdog recommend for such breaches?
The watchdog may publish reports
publicly censoring or reprimanding any individual it finds to be in breach, and
this is truly a public mark of a finding of impropriety, though it has no
enforceable power.
The watchdog may refer or recommend to Parliament that it consider sanctions including suspension for determined breaches or expulsions from the House of Commons, but Parliament must decide on the sanction and impose it.
While the watchdog does not have
direct power to impose fines or criminal penalties, it can refer to other
bodies, including law enforcement or professional regulatory bodies, to pursue
legal or disciplinary sanctions.
The watchdog routinely advocates for reform of the sanctioning regime to facilitate more enforceable sanctions, notably the power of fines and other deterrents against improper conduct.