The mystery MP who walked in on Boris Johnson and his then-girlfriend Carrie Symonds in an alleged “compromising situation” when he was Foreign Secretary is Northern Ireland Secretary Conor Burns, The Independent has revealed.
Downing Street said Burns “marked” the pair’s relationship to Foreign Office officials after finding them “having a glass of wine together” alone in Mr Johnson’s office as foreign secretary in 2018.
Mr Burns, one of Mr Johnson’s staunchest supporters, had a “sixth sense” that their relationship was “one to watch”, a senior No 10 source said.
Mr Burns raised the issue with Mr Johnson’s close aide Ben Gascoigne, who worked for him at the Foreign Office and is now deputy chief of staff at No 10.
It was previously reported that Mr Gascoigne in turn alerted Mr Johnson’s private office at the Foreign Office.
On the discovery of Mr Johnson’s relationship with Kerry (then Carrie Symonds) as a result of Mr Burns interfering with them, Mr Gascoigne and other members of Mr Johnson’s Foreign Office team threatened to resign if Mr Johnson goes ahead with plans to appoint her as his £100,000-a-year Chief of Staff at the Foreign Office.
Other sources also told the Independent that Mr Johnson’s team had discussed the possible risk to him of blackmail – or compromise – as foreign secretary if any of Britain’s enemies found out he was having an affair.
In the event, they decided not to confront him about his relationship with Mrs. Symonds, but successfully blocked his attempt to make her his chief of staff without informing him that it was related to their belief, based on which Mr. Burns saw them bound.
The claim that Mr Johnson and Ms Symonds were found in a “compromising situation” was first made in a little-noticed section of Carrie Johnson’s biography by Tory Lord Ashcroft earlier this year.
When the story reappeared in The Times earlier this month, it led to a political row when the paper dropped the story from later editions following No 10’s intervention.
Amid intense speculation over the past few days about the nature of the alleged “compromising situation” and the identity of those said to have known about it, Downing Street gave its own version of events for the first time in an attempt to shut down the controversy.
Northern Ireland Minister Conor Burns
(PA cable)
The senior No 10 source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Independent that Mr Burns, then Mr Johnson’s parliamentary private secretary – the metaphorical ‘eyes and ears’ of a minister – happened to run into him and Ms Symonds alone in the House of Commons:
“Connor really got into them. He saw two people sitting drinking a glass of wine, from which (one) could deduce where the relationship was going. He doesn’t interrupt anything. It was a case of ‘why are they drinking?’, and ‘let’s talk to Ben (Gascoigne)’.
“That’s why he (Connor) felt it was something he needed to highlight. It was kind of a sixth sense that this was something to watch. The door was not locked. He did not invade. He entered where they had met earlier and they were still chatting.
Mr Johnson and Ms Symonds’ relationship became public later in 2018 after his split from his second wife Marina was announced.
At the height of the partygate scandal, Mr Burns led Mr Johnson’s defense of attending a No 10 birthday party in his honour, which led to his fine for breaching Covid lockdown laws. The MP downplayed the issue, saying the prime minister had been “waited on with cake”.
Burns, 49, was appointed trade secretary when Johnson succeeded Theresa May in July 2019. He was due to resign from the post in 2020 and was suspended as an MP for a week after a parliamentary inquiry found that had made “veiled threats”. to use the privilege to “protect the interests of his family” in a financial dispute involving his father.
He was given a second chance in September last year when Mr Johnson appointed him Northern Ireland Secretary.
Mr Burns declined to comment.
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