Leave supporting Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the claims against Boris Johnson were completely “irrelevant” to his candidacy as next Tory Leader. Mr Mogg added he felt that the campaign was entirely fair and noted that no one had yet been charged with any wrongdoing by the police. Boris Johnson is to be summoned to court after a private prosecution was launched alleging he lied when he said the UK gave the EU £350million a week during the Brexit campaign.

The European Research Group (ERG) leader appeared to clash with Sky News Presenter Tom Macleod, who questioned whether Mr Johnson should concede his leadership bid. 

Mr Mogg responded: “Of course it is appropriate for him to be running.

“I think this is basically an irrelevance as it was a completely fair campaign.

“The losers are a bit sore and the Remainers are sore and want to rerun the campaign.

“There were some very minor issues.

“Also there was an unfairness in that because under data protection laws they had to get rid of the information they had which might have answered the electoral commission’s inquiries.

“This is because there were two different bits of law, one they needed to keep the information to show they hadn’t done anything wrong.

“And on the other bit of law, they had to destroy the information to meet the requirements of data protection.”

Earlier in the day the ERG leader also spoke to Chanel 4 defending his choice for the succession of Theresa May.

He said: “The issue here is not whether the statement is inaccurate or not.

“The statement is clearly justifiable and always has been and that is a judgement for voters to make.

“For other parties to say I prefer the net figure rather than the gross figure is not a matter for courts to say one way or another.

“Politicising justice is a really bad idea and it’s actually what happens in totalitarian regimes.”

Source: Read Full Article