The luxurious Caribbean vacation offered to Prime Minister Boris Johnson after his legislative victory at the end of 2019 did not violate the code of conduct, the authority responsible for ensuring compliance with parliamentary rules concluded on Thursday.
The declaration of interests provided by the conservative leader is “accurate and complete, and we find no breach” of the rules, said the committee of the Lower House of Parliament responsible for the matter.
Holidays costing more than 17,000 euros
It regrets, however, in its report that the “informal” arrangements to finance this stay were not immediately communicated in detail, neither by Boris Johnson nor by his benefactor, the businessman David Ross, a donor of the Conservative party. Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds, whom he married third in late May, had spent the New Year
on the private island Moustique, in the Caribbean archipelago of the Grenadines.
In his declaration of interests, the head of government had indicated that this vacation worth 15,000 pounds (17,500 euros at the current rate) had been offered to him by the businessman David Ross, founder of the former group Carphone Warehouse mobile phone system.
A “benefit in kind”
But David Ross had sown confusion by denying, at first, having advanced such a sum, before going back on his statements through the intermediary of his spokesperson to affirm that it was about an “advantage in nature “.
Downing Street had always ensured that everything had been declared in due form and that the Prime Minister had obeyed the rules. The existence of an investigation into the holidays was confirmed in May, when the government was entangled in several cases that highlighted the very close links between power and private interests.