The quango which vets appointments to the House of Lords last night confirmed it had blocked half of Boris Johnson’s proposed peerages.
In a rare public intervention, the House of Lords Appointments Commission (Holac) said that eight nominations ‘were not supported by the commission’.
The watchdog said it had ‘received and processed’ all nominations made by the former prime minister in his resignation honours list.
Mr Johnson is thought to have nominated 18 individuals, including four serving MPs. Seven were approved in the final list on Friday, and one is thought to have withdrawn during the process.
The intervention came as allies of Mr Johnson traded blows with Downing Street over the contents of a secret summit with Rishi Sunak in which Mr Johnson set out his case for his list to remain untouched.
Ex-prime minister Boris Johnson gave a thumbs up this morning as he went for a run with his dog Dilyn
The former Tory leader has dramatically quit the House of Commons over Partygate and a row over his peerages list
Supporters of the former PM claim that at a meeting this month he was ‘misled’ by Mr Sunak into believing that his plan to nominate a string of loyal MPs for peerages would be waved through.
But government sources strongly rejected the claim last night, saying Mr Sunak had pledged only that he would not intervene to block any of Mr Johnson’s nominations.
In the event, Holac rejected all four MPs put forward by Mr Johnson, including Nadine Dorries and Nigel Adams, who have both now quit parliament.
A Whitehall source told the Mail that the committee’s chairman Lord Bew wrote to the PM saying it was ‘not appropriate to support them at this stage’ as they had indicated they wanted to remain as MPs until the next election.
The crossbench peer said that the vetting process ‘cannot be reliable after six months’, meaning that Mr Sunak would have to nominate them again himself if they wanted to take a peerage at a later date.
The source said Mr Johnson appeared to have ‘misunderstood the process’, despite Mr Sunak going out of his way to make it clear that he would only pass on the names approved by Holac.
‘The guarantee that the PM gave Boris was very clear,’ the source said. ‘He promised to sign any list that was approved by Holac and that is precisely what he did.’
Energy Secretary Grant Shapps insisted the ‘world has moved on’ from Mr Johnson as he tried to contain the damage to Rishi Sunak’s Government
Lord Howard, a former Tory leader, issued a plea for party unity as Mr Sunak attempts to overhaul Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s poll lead ahead of the next general electio
Lord Frost, who was Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator and also a Cabinet minister under Mr Johnson, predicted the ex-PM had not departed frontline politics for good
Mr Johnson had nominated former business secretary Sir Alok Sharmer and Scottish Secretary Alister Jack for peerages, alongside Mrs Dorries and Mr Adams.
An ally of Mr Johnson claimed he was assured their names would go forward at the meeting in Mr Sunak’s Commons office late in the afternoon on June 2.
One MP said: ‘He texted people afterwards to reassure them they were on the list. There is no way he would have done that unless he had had a reassurance from Rishi.’
The former PM is reported to have messaged Mrs Dorries, saying: ‘Just finished the meeting with Rishi. List being published imminently. You’re on it.’
An MP on the list said Mr Johnson had been deliberately misled about the process. ‘That information was deliberately withheld,’ the would-be peer told the Sunday Times. ‘If anyone had said to us that we needed to stand down to be on that list, that is what we would have done.
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Ex-Tory deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine has demanded Mr Johnson be blocked from ever standing for election as a Conservative MP again
‘They withheld the process to stop the by-elections, and look what happened. I think there was something more sinister and devious about it. They want Boris and his allies out of Westminster.’
The secret summit is said to have got off to a ‘cordial’ start, with Mr Johnson offering advice on taking the fight to Labour and hinting he was prepared to help campaign in the General Election.
An ally said the former PM made some ‘bridge-building efforts’, adding: ‘He wants to win the next election. He wants to beat Starmer. He basically offered to put the leadership question off the table.’
However, the mood is said to have cooled when Mr Johnson asked for guarantees that his resignation honours would be rubber-stamped.
Mr Sunak is said to have offered to forward on the names approved by the vetting process but not to intervene further.
A government source insisted that Mr Sunak did not attempt to mislead his predecessor, telling him: ‘I don’t want you to leave this room thinking I have made you a promise that will be a problem in our relationship going forward.’
