MP given interest-free loan for office and staffing costs month before crucial Brexit vote

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Boris Johnson received £23,000 in loans and donations last month from a company run by the Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby, official documents have revealed.

The former foreign secretary, who is widely regarded as a potential Conservative leadership contender, declared he had been given an interest-free loan of £20,000 from CTF Partners, in the latest register of MPs’ interests.

Earmarked for “office and staffing costs”, the loan is due to be repaid by 20 January. Johnson also received a £3,000 donation from CTF Partners before Christmas.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lynton Crosby. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Crosby ran Johnson’s two successful London mayoral campaigns, and the pair have remained in touch. It was reported last year that Crosby was keen to ally himself with Brexiters to sink Theresa May’s Chequers deal.

Johnson resigned as foreign secretary after the Chequers summit last July, when the cabinet agreed to a “common rulebook” for key sectors of the UK economy, tying Britain closely to EU regulations.

He has since become a regular columnist for the Daily Telegraph, using the platform to to offer a strident critique of the government’s Brexit strategy. According to the register of MPs’ interests, Johnson receives £275,000 a year for the column, which he has estimated takes him 10 hours a month to write.

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Johnson was criticised in December after it emerged he had accepted a £14,000 trip to Saudi Arabia from the country’s foreign affairs ministry only a few days before the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul.

Crosby was closely involved in May’s disastrous 2017 general election campaign. The £4m the Conservative party paid for his company’s services was its single biggest outlay.

Some of the prime minister’s close allies, including her former chief of staff Nick Timothy, blamed Crosby for a relentless focus on the “strong and stable leadership” mantra; though it subsequently emerged he had written a memo warning against calling a snap poll.

The Labour MP and anti-Brexit campaigner Owen Smith said: “The surest indicator that we are winning the argument for a final-say referendum is that the true enemies of the people – people like Johnson and Crosby – are getting ready their war chest to fight it.

“Brexit was always just a means to seize power for Johnson, Farage and the rest of them and there are always plenty of money men in the shadows ready to help them buy it.”

Johnson’s office declined to comment on the funding.