By the Reality CheckBBC News team
Image copyright UK Parliament / Jessica Taylor
Boris Johnson has resigned as Conservative leader and will step down as Prime Minister when a new leader is found.
It follows a wave of resignations by Tory MPs and ministers – some of whom have implicitly questioned Mr Johnson’s integrity.
During its three years, it has been inspected regularly. Here are some of the claims we looked at when he made them (along with articles from the time).
“Put £500 in everyone’s pockets”
Boris Johnson has unveiled the Conservatives’ plan to raise the threshold at which people start paying National Insurance contributions as they stand in the November 2019 election.
He said: “If we’re lucky enough to be elected so the first budget will hit the £9,500 threshold and that, as I said, will put £500 in everyone’s pockets.”
But that was incorrect. The Conservatives’ own press release said the benefit of raising the threshold to £9,500 in 2020-21 would be £100 a year. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said it would be £85 a year.
“There will be no checks on goods traveling from GB to NI or NI to GB”
Mr Johnson made that promise on the Brexit deal for Northern Ireland – known as the Protocol – which he negotiated and signed.
But that claim – in an interview with Sky News in December 2019 – was simply not true. This is against the terms of his own deal – as we pointed out at the time.
There have indeed been checks on goods from Great Britain (GB) to Northern Ireland (NI) since the protocol came into force on 31 December 2020. This has led to political problems in Northern Ireland and now the government wants to change the deal.
“There are hundreds of thousands — I think 400,000 — fewer families living in poverty now than there were in 2010.”
When we looked at Mr Johnson’s claim, made in June 2020, we could find nothing in official poverty statistics to support it, and Downing Street could not provide a source for the figure.
The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England also looked into the claim. Her analysis suggests that between 2010-11 and 2018-19:
- Another 800,000 people in families were in relative poverty
- 100,000 fewer people in families were in absolute poverty
None of them supported Mr Johnson’s claim – which appears to be false.
“I wear a mask wherever the rules say I have to”
Mr Johnson made the comment when asked at a press conference on 15 November 2021 whether he had worn a mask during his visit to Hexham Hospital a week ago.
But that wasn’t true – pictures emerged showing him not wearing one during the visit.
He later apologized, saying he hadn’t been wearing one for a while and “put it on as soon as I realized I made that mistake”.
“Guidelines were followed and rules were followed at all times”
The Prime Minister was asked in Parliament in December 2021 whether there was a lockdown-breaking party at Downing Street on 13 November 2020. He replied: “No, but I’m sure that whatever happened, the guidelines were followed and the rules were followed at all times.”
Civil servant Sue Gray’s report on the Downing Street meetings said there were two that day. Boris Johnson was even photographed on one of them, with at least six other people and bottles of wine.
Image copyright Cabinet Office Image caption
Boris Johnson pictured at a Downing Street gathering on November 13, 2020
At least one person was fined for this event, so it is not true to say that Covid guidelines and rules were followed throughout.
A parliamentary committee is currently investigating whether Mr Johnson deliberately misled MPs on the issue.
“I’m proud to restore the crown seal to the side of pint glasses”
This January 2022 quote from Boris Johnson was in a government press release outlining “Brexit options”.
The crown stamp was required as a “conformity mark” – something that shows the product complies with regulations – on British pint glasses. This changed in 2006 when it was replaced by the EU CE conformity mark.
But the quote was misleading. EU rules did not prevent the UK from having the crown stamp on pints before Brexit as a decorative element (as long as it did not overlap or be confused with the CE marking). The Conservative MEP even sought and received guidance on this issue in 2007.
In June 2022, government guidance said crown stamps would not return as a mark of conformity on pint glasses – it would be the UKCA mark along with the M – but could be used as a “decorative mark only”.
Warm Homes discount ‘worth £140 a week’
Also in January 2022, Boris Johnson told parliament that the Government’s Warm Homes Allowance had “cost £140 a week”.
It was £140 for the whole winter, not £140 a week.
“More people are working now than before the start of the pandemic”
In February 2022, Mr Johnson said at Prime Minister’s Questions that there were “more people working now than before the pandemic started”.
But that was false – the statistics regulator had criticized him the day before for making that claim on several previous occasions.
Mr Johnson was conflating the number of people on wages, which had increased, with the number of people in work, which had not. They are not the same thing – the wage number excludes, for example, the self-employed.
“We reduced crime by 14%”
Mr Johnson also said this in Parliament in February 2022. The figure was incorrect as it excluded fraud and computer misuse.
When they are included, crime actually rose by 14%.
The prime minister was again criticized by the statistics regulator.
Image copyright EPA
Sanctioned “another 100 last week”
Speaking of sanctions against the Russians for invading Ukraine. Mr Johnson told parliament on 3 March 2022 that the UK had sanctioned “275 people already, another 100 last week”.
He used the figure 100 several times this week, but the government failed to provide a list of who they were.
The lists they sent showed that only 15 people had been sanctioned in the previous week – a fact we highlighted at the time.
“We have done more to resettle vulnerable people than any other European country since 2015”
Mr Johnson made the comment in Parliament in March 2022 when he was questioned about the UK’s refugee situation.
He was right about a very specific small group of refugees who were admitted to the UK from another country where they had originally sought asylum.
This would apply, for example, to someone who fled the war in Syria and is now living in a camp in Jordan.
But the claim was misleading if you look at the asylum system as a whole. In the years 2015-20, the UK was significantly behind Germany, which took in 1,060,000 refugees compared to the UK’s figure of 92,000.
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