Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list has been launched, with some of his closest allies, including Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg, receiving peerages and other awards. The list was published just hours before Johnson stepped down as an MP. Simon Clarke and Rees-Mogg have been both knighted, while Patel was made a dame. Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen and London Assembly member Shaun Bailey are among the many seven new friends.
No serving MPs were given peerages, thereby avoiding by-elections for the Conservatives. However, there’ll now be a by-election in Johnson’s constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries was not included in the listing for the House of Lords, despite speculation that she could be. Dorries, who served as tradition secretary under Johnson, stood down as an MP just over an hour earlier than the honours list was launched.
The resignation honours listing is a practice that permits outgoing prime ministers to nominate individuals for honours. The list, accredited 9 months after Johnson resigned as prime minister, includes 38 honours and 7 peerages. Among Instant that will enter the Lords are Kulveer Singh Ranger, a former director of transport during Johnson’s tenure as London mayor, and former Downing Street chief of staff Dan Rosenfield.
Charlotte Owen, a former adviser to Johnson, will turn out to be one of the youngest friends, together with fellow advisers Ben Gascoigne and Ross Kempsell. Honours were additionally awarded to some of Johnson’s closest advisers during his premiership, together with former administrators of communications Jack Doyle and Guto Harri, who have been both made CBEs.
Recipients also embrace aides who served with Johnson during the lockdown events scandal in Downing Street amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s former principal non-public secretary, was awarded the Order of Bath. In May 2020, Reynolds sent an invitation to a “bring your own booze” party to Downing Street workers while the nation was underneath lockdown.
Ben Elliot, the previous co-chair of the Conservative Party, has been awarded a knighthood, as have Tory MPs Michael Fabricant and Conor Burns, who are loyal to Johnson. The first identify on the record is Tory MP and long-standing Brexit supporter Bill Cash, who has turn into a companion of honour. Membership is a special award granted to those “who have made a major contribution to the humanities, science, medication, or government” and is held by as much as 65 people at any one time.
Rishi Sunak has approved Johnson’s resignation honours list and “forwarded it unamended” to King Charles, based on the prime minister’s press secretary. Sunak had no involvement or enter into the accredited record. By convention, a former prime minister’s resignation listing of latest friends is forwarded to the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC), which vets appointments.
Alok Sharma, who was president of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, was one other Tory MP who did not function on the list, despite being broadly tipped for a peerage. Typically, when sitting MPs are given peerages, they resign their seats, triggering by-elections.
Following the Partygate scandal and the political turbulence of Johnson’s premiership, the former PM’s honours listing was expected to be controversial and provoke fierce criticism. Some reactions to the names revealed have met these expectations. A previously loyal aide to Johnson referred to as the honours record “an utter disgrace,” stating that it was “rewards for failure all round.” They added, “Boris has slammed the door shut on the prospect of any return to the frontline of British politics and trashed what remained of his legacy.”
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, stated it was “shameful” that Sunak had “failed to stand up to his former boss’s outrageous demands and agreed at hand out prizes to this carousel of cronies.” Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper additionally criticised the record, stating, “Boris Johnson has been allowed handy out gongs to his Partygate pals, and Rishi Sunak has simply waved it through.”