Boris Johnson ignored a string of commands to leave his grace and favour home after quitting as Foreign Secretary for three weeks.

The bumbling blonde Brexiteer ‘squatted’ in the £20million government apartment despite repeated calls by the Foreign Office for him to leave.

The Tory MP stayed in the flat – which costs the taxpayers £500,000 a year to rent – for three weeks after he resigned.

During that time the Foreign Office’s senior civil servant Sir Simon McDonald sent him four messages calling on him to leave.

According to the Mail , the first message, sent within hours of his resignation on July 9, informed him he no longer had use of his ministerial car, and noted the Cabinet Office wanted him to leave the grace-and-favour pad within 48 hours.

The letter, from Sir Simon, said officials expected any “packing up period” to be “v.short, ie if not tomorrow then Wednesday.”

Later that evening, apparently in response to a request for more time from Mr Johnson,  Sir Simon said he wanted to be “humane”, but warned Mr Johnson to immediately stop using his official residence for meetings and media interviews.

And he asked the outgoing Foreign Secretary to draw up a timetable for moving out of the flat.

Four days later, the Mail reports, Sir Simon reminded Mr Johnson he had yet to return his diplomatic passport and government devices, including a laptop and an iPad.

He wrote: “Time is passing and I have still not seen a plan. So I’d be grateful for an update, please.”

And a further six days after that he wrote: “Can you tell me today, please, when you will be finally and completely out?”

One Carlton Gardens, a Grade I-listed property, was designed by the Regency architect John Nash. It is owned by the Crown Estate which looks after the Queen’s properties.

The official residence is leased by the Foreign Office, which paid £482,341 in 2015.

An ally of Mr Johnson told the Mail it was "completely standard practice" to take several weeks to leave the apartment, and the MP had an “informal understanding” with Sir Simon that he would leave by the end of July.

They added that he had paid the “day to day” bills at the residence, and so there was no additional cost to the taxpayer.

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