A former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom may use his work experience to keep well-paid speeches. Boris Johnson did that, with surrender: he earned around 5.1 million pounds between October 2022 and May 2024 (around 5.9 million euros).
But what a former prime minister is not allowed without restrictions is to make contacts gained in office to get ahead in business. The British newspaper The Guardian has unveiled That Johnson did that anyway.
The politician is said to have deployed his premier contacts to get consultancy work in Saudi Arabia, and received almost a quarter of a million pounds after a meeting with Venezuelan President Maduro and a hedge fund manager. The former prime minister has not yet responded to the story.
The watchdog for work by former ministers, on the other hand, has launched an investigation in response to the reporting, reports The Guardian.
Old premier bag money
As a former Prime Minister, Johnson can claim compensation for the costs he incurs as a public figure. Since his departure he would be on 182,000 pounds Public Duty Costs Allowance have received.
That money should not be used for private or commercial purposes. The question is now, according to The Guardian, whether Johnson has adhered to that. Labor politicians call in British media to investigate whether Johnson has lost his right to that allowance.
The watchdog for work of former ministers has launched an investigation
The Guardian is based on an information leak of 1,800 documents, which the American NGO Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDOS) owns. It is a package of letters, emails, invoices, speeches and business contracts. The ‘Boris Files’, as The Guardian calls them, provide insight into the company that Johnson set up after he left his post as Prime Minister in September 2022. A few documents come from the time that Johnson still held that office, but most of the documents date from September 2022 to July 2024. The NGO does not know where the documents come from.
Saudi Crown Prince
Johnson took on a new part -time job at the beginning of 2024 at consultancy firm Better Earth, which came to work shortly before Johnson was founded by a Canadian mining store.
He accepted the job before he asked for permission from the watchdog for former ministers. The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments gave Johnson permission for the job he had already started, on the condition that he would not use the contacts he made in his position as Prime Minister to win contracts for Better Earth.
But: he had already done that then. To, according to The Guardian, to win a contract for the consultancy firm with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He lobbyed Saudi dignitaries he had met as prime minister, and treated, among other things, a Saudi trading minister he had met as prime minister for lunch and a meeting in a private club. Johnson wrote a letter to Prince Mohammed in which he called himself an “avid admirer of the vision you have for the Kingdom”.
240,000 pounds
And then The Guardian describes a meeting of Johnson with a man he rather as’ dictator of a Evil regime ”. In fact, he was on vacation with family, in the Dominican Republic, but Johnson interrupted it to meet Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, together with hedgefund manager Maarten Petermann. Johnson did not pay 240,000 ponds for that meeting. The Guardian found a contract that the former prime minister concluded with Petermann, in which Johnson is described as a man with “unique experience and knowledge of the British government policy and international relationships”. Agreements are made in the contract for several meetings. Whether the 240,000 pounds have actually been paid before the meeting with Maduro, The Guardian cannot say with certainty.
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