Britain’s Johnson is accused of a new breach by the Ethics Authority for taking a job at a newspaper without examination

LONDON (Reuters) – Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who resigned from parliament last week over a discovery that he misled lawmakers about coronavirus ban parties, was charged on Friday with a new breach for taking a newspaper columnist job without waiting a due diligence. Ethics examination.

Nine months after leaving the premiership, Johnson’s moral record has caused renewed trouble for the ruling Conservative Party, which is divided over whether to endorse a panel of lawmakers’ findings that he deliberately misled Parliament about parties in his office during the pandemic.

The committee, which has a Conservative majority, said he should have been suspended from parliament had he not resigned as an MP last week. He called it a “political assassination” in a scathing resignation statement in which he also appeared to be highly critical of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

On Friday, Johnson, 58, was tapped as a Daily Mail columnist and returned to a journalism career that saw him write for several leading British titles, including the one he sacked for making up a quote.

“Whether you’re a Boris fan or not, it will be required reading – both in Westminster and for millions around the world,” the newspaper said of the column, which will appear on Saturday.

Ministers and civil servants who leave office are required to consult the ethics body, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA), before taking on new jobs. It said Johnson committed a new breach by failing to give him proper notice.

“The Ministerial Act stipulates that ministers must ensure that no new appointments are announced or accepted before the committee can give its advice,” it said in a statement. “A request received 30 minutes prior to the announcement of the appointment is a clear violation.”

Acuba has no executive powers, but a new breach of the rules could make it difficult for Johnson to make a political comeback.

Johnson began his working life in journalism, being sacked by The Times for making up a quote. He went to work for the Daily Telegraph, where as a Brussels correspondent he criticized the European Union in lucid if not always precise prose.

He later pursued parallel media and political careers as editor of the Spectator magazine and as a Member of Parliament, and before becoming Prime Minister he wrote a column for the Daily Telegraph. This column has often come under fire for his views – he was accused of Islamophobia when he said that Muslim women in burqas looked like letterboxes or bank robbers.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper) Additional reporting by Alistair Smoot Editing by Peter Graff

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