Boris Johnson has been summoned to court to face allegations of misconduct in public office over comments made in the lead-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum.
In what The Daily Telegraph describes as “an extraordinary development”, the favourite to win the Tory leadership race is being targeted in a private prosecution by campaigner Marcus Ball.
Lawyers for the 29-year-old businessman allege that Johnson lied and engaged in criminal conduct when he repeatedly claimed that the UK sent £350m a week to Brussels. The figure was plastered on the side of a Vote Leave bus that toured Britain during the tightly fought campaign.
The former foreign secretary “knew the figure was wrong, still he chose to repeat it over and over and over”, Lewis Power, a lawyer for Ball, told Westminster Magistrates’ Court last week.
Johnson’s lawyer, Adrian Darbishire, said that the MP “absolutely denied that he acted in an improper or dishonest manner at any time”, and called the case a “stunt” that is being “brought for political purposes”.
“The application represents an attempt, for the first time in English legal history, to employ the criminal law to regulate the content and quality of political debate. That is self-evidently not the function of the criminal law,” said Darbishire.
Someone can be found guilty of the offence of misconduct in public office “if a prosecution can prove that the official wilfully neglected to perform their duty to such a degree that it amounts to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder”, reports the BBC.
In her ruling, District Judge Margot Coleman said she was satisfied that there was a prima facie case for the allegation that there had been an abuse of the public’s trust in a holder of office.
“The allegations which have been made are unproven accusations and I do not make any findings of fact,” she continued.
The preliminary hearing will take place at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and the case will then be sent to the Crown Court for trial.
The BBC’s assistant political editor, Norman Smith, said the allegations “could not come at a worse time” for Johnson, with his critics “likely to use the claims against him in the upcoming contest to become next Tory leader and prime minister”.
But others believe the case could boost his leadership bid. Labour peer Stewart Wood tweeted: “If Boris wants to fight a campaign based on being the PM to take on the Establishment elites (I know, I know, the irony could flood the Hebrides), this could be a bit of a gift.”
That view is shared by The Times’ columnist Iain Smith.
Stephen Parkinson, former deputy head of the Attorney General’s Office, expressed surprise at Judge Coleman’s decision.
Parkinson, now a senior partner at law firm Kingsley Napley, told The Guardian: “Freedom of political debate forms the bedrock of any democratic system. Clearly, if politicians were exposed to prosecution for the statements that they make in campaigns, that would have a chilling effect on our politics and undermine democracy.
“The offence of misconduct in public office has become almost fashionable parlance recently given the frequency with which it is cited. However, these types of prosecutions are still very rare.”
Meanwhile, The Spectator’s Ross Clark warns that the court case could be the first of a series against politicians. “Next in the dock, surely, will be George Osborne for his claim that a vote for Brexit would result in unemployment rising by between 500,000 and 800,000 within two years (in the event, unemployment fell to a 45-year low),” he writes.
“If we are going to conduct politics in the courts there is really no end of possibilities, but it is clear who would have the upper hand: people with the funds available to fight such cases,” Clark concludes.
