Boris Johnson has announced he will QUIT as an MP with immediate effect in a bombshell statement accusing his enemies of trying to "drive him out".
The disgraced former Prime Minister decided to jump before he was pushed after receiving the findings of a Commons probe into whether he lied to MPs about Partygate.
If the Commons Privileges Committee had found he did mislead Parliament, he could have been suspended from the Commons.
A ban of 10 days or more would have almost certainly triggered a by-election in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat, where Labour have been eying his 7,210-strong majority.
Less than four years after he won a landslide election victory, Mr Johnson is tonight left without a seat in an extraordinary fall from grace.
But brazen Mr Johnson left the door open to a comeback by saying he was leaving Parliament "at least for now".
He also refused to rule out standing in a snap by-election in the safer seat of Mid Bedfordshire - vacated hours earlier by his close ally Nadine Dorries, who also quit Parliament today.
The dramatic news comes only hours after his resignation honours were published, where he showered his cronies, allies and Partygate pals with gongs.
He handed handed a knighthood to Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Damehood to Priti Patel and a string of accolades to officials who were at the centre of lockdown-busting bashes in Downing Street.
In a bullish and lengthy statement, the deluded Tory claimed the Privileges Committee had "not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons".
And he claimed the committee was "determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of Parliament".
Mr Johnson said: "'It is very sad to be leaving Parliament - at least for now - but above all I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias."
The ex-PM was handed the committee's report earlier this week and was given two weeks to respond.
But tonight, he ranted: "Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts. This is the very definition of a kangaroo court."
The Privileges Committee has been examining whether Mr Johnson misled Parliament when he dismissed the Mirror's reporting on Partygate.
Mr Johnson's assertion to MPs on December 8 2021 that no rules or guidance had been broken in No10 is at the heart of the row which triggered the end of his premiership.
The Met Police and Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray both found that rules HAD been breached - with 126 fines issued to staff by police for attending bashes, including Mr Johnson himself.
The committee questioned what Mr Johnson said about his own knowledge of the gatherings where the rules or guidance had been broken - because there is evidence that he attended them.
MPs heard a string of excuses from Mr Johnson over hours of evidence on March 22.
He blamed “difficult” days in the office for alcohol-pumped parties - as doctors, nurses and carers struggled in the early days of the pandemic.
He also used his 1,020-word resignation statement to launch a stinging attack on Mr Sunak’s Government.
"When I left office last year the Government was only a handful of points behind in the polls,” he claimed.
“That gap has now massively widened.
"Just a few years after winning the biggest majority in almost half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk.
“Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do.”
He attacked his successor’s record on bidding for a free trade deal with the US, animal welfare laws and failing to be pro-growth enough.
"We need to show how we are making the most of Brexit and we need in the next months to be setting out a pro-growth and pro-investment agenda,” he raged.
“We need to cut business and personal taxes - and not just as pre-election gimmicks - rather than endlessly putting them up.
“We must not be afraid to be a properly Conservative Government.”
Tory backbencher Michael Fabricant, who was handed a gong today by Mr Johnson, tweeted: "Disgraceful treatment of a political leader who has made world history by achieving Brexit and leading the. Conservatives to a landslide General Election victory."
Separately, Mr Johnson is also facing a fresh police investigation after officials handed over evidence of potential rule breaking to cops that Mr Johnson had submitted to the Covid inquiry.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “The British public are sick to the back teeth of this never ending Tory soap opera played out at their expense.
“After 13 years of Conservative chaos, enough is enough.
“It’s time to turn the page with a fresh start for Britain with a Labour Government focused on the people’s priorities of tackling the cost of living crisis and building a better future.”
Newspaper columnist Mr Johnson, first elected to Parliament in 2001, was PM from July 2019 until September last year.
During his three years in No10, the UK quit the EU, was engulfed by the coronavirus pandemic and spearheaded Western support for Ukraine.
While he led his party to an 80-seat majority at the 2019 election, Tory support drained away after Partygate, his attempts to save his MP pal Owen Paterson over a lobbying row and his handling of an alleged sex scandal.
