The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) wrote to Boris Johnson (pictured in London last month) to vent their anger at him

Boris Johnson has been formally reprimanded for breaking parliamentary rules in signing up to a £275,000 a year newspaper column deal days after he quit as Foreign Secretary, it today emerged.

Under the ministerial code, ex ministers must apply to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) and wait three months before they can take up a new job.

But Mr Johnson signed up to his lucrative column with the Daily Telegraph just days after he stormed out of Theresa May's government in a row over Brexit last month.

And he did not seek permission before agreeing to resume his journalism job.

Now Acoba has written to the Tory MP to tell him off for breaking the ministerial code by not telling them about the job before he signed up to it.

It is a fresh blow for Mr Johnson, who has sparked a massive political row and is being investigated by his own party for comparing women wearing burqas to letterboxes.

But Acoba does not have any actual powers to punish Mr Johnson for breaking the rules.

The ruling, which was published on the Government's website today, has sparked a fresh call for body to be overhauled and given real teeth to mete out punishments.

Jon Trickett MP, Labour's Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, said: 'Boris Johnson's flagrant breach of the rules shows the utter contempt he has for democracy and ridding politics of vested interests, and raises serious questions about why he was so desperate to start writing for the Telegraph again.

'The system is clearly not working when the former Foreign Secretary can simply ignore the official body that oversees appointments seemingly without any consequences.

'A drastic overhaul of this toothless body is urgently needed so we can put an end to politicians and the establishment working only for the interests of themselves.'

In their letter, Acoba says a senior Forign Office civil servant wrote to Mr Johnson warning him not to take up anohter job until the three-month wait was over.

But he went ahead anyway and signed the Fleet Street deal, which was announced to the public before the watchdog was informed.

The ex minister insists that he did not see the letter until after signing the contract.

In their letter Acoba said: 'The committee considers it to be unacceptable that you signed a contract with The Telegraph and your appointment was announced before you had sought and obtained advice from the committee, as was incumbent on you leaving office under the government's business appointment rules.'

The letter was made public shortly after it emerged that Mr Johnson is being investigated by the Conservative Party for his burqa comments.

Boris John son (pictured with Theresa May last year outside Downing Street) took up the lucrative job just days after quitting the Cabinet in a row over Brexit

Theresa May and a string of other Tory minsters have demanded he apologise for making the 'offensive' remarks about the Muslim head coverings.

And Remainer Tories have used the row to stick the knife into the leading Brexiteer - with several saying the controversy shows that he is not fit to be party leader or PM.

But several Tory Brexiteers, including Nadine Dorries and Andrew Bridgen, have rallied to his defence insisting that he is only voicing the views most Britons hold.

Conservative sources say that the investigation has been triggered automatically after they received a flurry of complaints.

But it has exposed a bitter divide within Tory ranks.

As Mr Johnson faces twin political storms arising from his newspaper column at home, he is understood to be away on holiday and has not commented.