Kemi Badenoch has defended Boris Johnson over allegations he has profited from contacts made while in office, saying people “should be able to earn money when they leave politics”.
Her comments follow a series of stories in The Guardian, based on leaked data provided by a non-profit organisation, that suggest Mr Johnson profited from contacts and influence he gained in office.
Mr Johnson is alleged to have lobbied a senior Saudi official he met while in office to share a pitch with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and to have been paid more than £200,000 after meeting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The reports prompted criticism from the Liberal Democrats, who called for Mr Johnson to lose access to the allowance given to former prime ministers to support them in public life.
But in an interview with GB News, Mrs Badenoch defended Mr Johnson, saying: “I think that people should be able to earn money when they leave politics.”
She went on to accuse The Guardian of “distracting from what Labour are doing, which is making a mess of our economy”.
The reports are based on files obtained by Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS), a US-registered non-profit organisation that archives leaked and hacked documents.
They mostly concern the period of time after Mr Johnson’s term as prime minister, from September 2022 and July 2024, along with some documents from when he was in No 10.
The files have also raised questions about whether the company he set up after leaving Downing Street, the Office of Boris Johnson, blurred the lines of how his ex-prime minister’s allowance was used.
The public duty costs allowance is to help with the costs incurred by former prime ministers who are still active in public life.
It affords former prime ministers up to £115,000 a year to cover office and secretarial costs arising from public duties, but it is not supposed to be used for private or commercial activities.
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), which monitors former ministers’ jobs after leaving government, said it could investigate Mr Johnson over the reports.
An Acoba spokeswoman said: “We are currently looking at the information reported in The Guardian.
“Acoba has already investigated and reported breaches of the business appointment rules by Mr Johnson. Where there is evidence of further non-compliance, we will investigate.”
The PA news agency was unable to contact Mr Johnson’s office for comment.
