BORIS Johnson remains a popular figure and getting rid of him has handed a big poll lead to Labour, according Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.

The former Business Secretary told GB News: “When Boris Johnson left the prime ministership, the Tories were a few points behind in the opinion polls and now we’re about 20 points behind in the opinion polls.

“So you see the cause and effect, that Boris is a popular national figure who connects with voters and getting rid of him was a mistake.”

In a discussion with Patrick Christys, he continued: “If the voters send Boris Johnson back to Parliament, then this report is a dead letter.

“That means this report is completely irrelevant, that they’ve taken away his pass as a visitor, but if he were returned to Parliament as an MP, this report becomes completely irrelevant, a dead letter, no significance.

“Fortunately, our fundamental constitutional right to send to Parliament whoever we like is unaffected by this self-serving report.

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t think he’s decided. But I think he remains a great national figure with huge popularity amongst Conservative voters.”

He added: “It was a foregone conclusion that the opposition was all going to vote against Boris, because it was fundamentally political, it gets wrapped up as if it’s judicial and if it’s a fair inquiry. It’s not, it’s politics.

“Once you have the opposition against Boris and the Boris haters within the Conservative Party, of whom there are sadly too many, then Boris was always bound to lose almost whatever the report had said.

“And 118 conservative voted against Boris yesterday, but bear in mind 148 Conservatives voted against him in the vote of no confidence a year ago. So in some ways, his numbers are better now than they were last year.”