Bitter Boris Johnson blasted Tory rebels for “changing the rules” to force him out of No10 today.
Making his farewell speech at 7.30am in Downing Street, he said: “The baton will be handed over in what has unexpectedly turned out to be a relay race - they changed the rules halfway through, but never mind that now.”
The then Prime Minister won a vote of confidence in his leadership on June 6.
Conservative MPs backed him by 211 votes to 148 - and under the rules, he should have been safe from another ballot for a year.
But his allies have accused the party’s backbench 1922 Committee of planning to change the system so he could face another vote earlier.
Insiders admit he would most likely have been defeated in a second confidence ballot.
By signalling they would change the rules to stage another vote before 12 months had passed, Mr Johnson’s supporters say the party rebels effectively forced him out.
Will Walden, Mr Johnson’s director of communications when he was mayor of London, said the accusation that the now-former PM’s critics changed the rules was a “clear dig” at the MPs who ousted him.
“It wasn’t particularly dignified, reflective or statesmanlike - and at the beginning it was pretty bitter,” Mr Walden said of his ex-boss’s speech.
“It’s a clear dig, a parting shot, that the parliamentary party are out of touch and that they’ve got the decision wrong”.
The Government’s former top spin doctor accused the Tory Party of having a “collective appetite for self-harm” as he left No10.
Guto Harri, who was the PM’s director of communications for just seven months, said his time with Mr Johnson in Downing Street was “far too brief”.
He claimed: “I saw an exceptional Prime Minister put in a massive shift, but the die - tragically - was cast.
“Seven months on the frontline was relentless, exhausting, a huge challenge intellectually, emotionally and even physically.
“At times, not least when the Conservative Party showed its collective appetite for self-harm, it was brutal.”
Mr Johnson used his 1,079-word, early-morning address to highlight his proudest moments from his 37-and-a-half months in power - pointing to the Government’s record on Brexit, supporting Ukraine and the Covid-19 vaccine rollout.
The outgoing PM pledged his “fervent support” for successor Liz Truss as she prepared to take over and deliver a plan to tackle the energy crisis.
He insisted her administration would do “everything we can” to help people struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.
Amid ongoing questions about how he will spend his time as a backbencher,
the politician who as a child declared he wanted to be “world king” said his career was now like a booster rocket “that has fulfilled its function and I will now be gently re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down invisibly in some remote and obscure corner of the Pacific”.
Mr Johnson is widely expected to join the lucrative after-dinner speaking circuit.
Insiders believe he could command up to £250,000 per speech.
He is also tipped to return to journalism, having previously trousered £275,000-a-year for a weekly column on The Daily Telegraph.
Allies say he will finally get round to finishing his biography of Shakespeare - and it is thought Mr Johnson has been keeping a diary during his time in power.
Publishing his memoirs could net the ex-Premier millions.
But he is thought to harbour ambitions of eventually returning to frontline politics, believing his work is incomplete and he still has much to offer the Conservatives and country.
Mr Johnson urged the warring Tories to reunite after three years of his leadership - and a hugely divisive, eight-week battle between Ms Truss and rival candidate Rishi Sunak for the party crown.
Pointing to a truce between his Jack Russell cross dog and the Downing Street tabby cat, he said: “I just say to my party if Dilyn and Larry can put behind them their occasional difficulties then so can the Conservative Party.”
Turning to electors who gave him an 80-seat majority less than three years ago, Mr Johnson, who was brought down after a series of scandals including Partygate - first exposed by the Mirror - went on:
“Above all thanks to you, the British people, to the voters for giving me the chance to serve - all of you who worked so tirelessly together to beat Covid, to put us where we are today.
“Together, we have laid foundations that will stand the test of time, whether by taking back control of our laws, of putting in vital new infrastructure - great, solid masonry on which we will continue to build together, paving the path of prosperity now and for future generations.”
Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy accused Mr Johnson of listing “imaginary achievements” in his resignation speech.
He fumed: “ Boris Johnson standing outside Downing Street listing imaginary achievements in a desperate attempt to claim a legacy is not going to fool anyone.
“He was exposed as a liar and a charlatan. Good riddance to the worst Prime Minister of the modern era.”
Johnson hinted he could try to return to No10
Mr Johnson hinted he could try to return to No10 by name checking a Roman statesman as he quit.
Delivering his final speech at 7.30am, the outgoing Prime Minister declared: “Like Cincinnatus, I am returning to my plough.”
Classics scholar Mr Johnson’s reference was to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, an ancient Roman politician associated with civic virtue and, according to classicist Dame Mary Beard, “someone who doesn’t try to hang on to power when they’ve finished”.
According to tradition, in the fifth century BC, Cincinnatus left life as a farmer to become Roman dictator to fight off and attack on the republic, before returning to his farm.
But Dame Mary said: “One story says (Cincinnatus) did come back to power and ... put down a popular uprising.
Dame Mary also branded Cincinnatus “an enemy of the people”. She added: “He did not wish to give people their rights - he was an absolute elitist. In our terms he was dead right-wing.”
Paddy Power has odds of 20/1 on Mr Johnson returning as PM.
