Boris Johnson has earned nearly £5million since leaving office

Boris Johnson has reported earnings of £4.8m since leaving office last September, more than 50 times his £84,144 salary as a backbench.

The former Prime Minister on Wednesday declared an upfront payment of £2,488,387.53 from New York’s Harry Walker Agency for an unspecified number of future speaking engagements.

The spokesperson agency represents some of the biggest names in American politics, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Johnson was driven from Downing Street in July by mutinous Tory MPs over a series of scandals including ‘Partygate’, which saw scores of Whitehall staff – and Johnson himself – accused of attending illegal gatherings during the Covid-19 lockdown with a were fined.

He has since remained in the backbenches as MP for the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituencies, but according to the Register of MPs Financial Interests, his income has grown in just a few months on a book advance and speeches, which have netted him nearly a quarter of a million pounds at once.

In January alone, his speaking earnings included £246,406 from Bloomberg Singapore and £200,892 from Aditya Birla Management, an Indian company, according to the register.

The lucrative engagements come despite telling MPs in 2021 to focus on their parliamentary duties. “You have to put your job first as an MP and you have to be first and foremost about your constituents,” he said.

Johnson has given HarperCollins a £510,000 advance to publish a memoir chronicling his turbulent three-year tenure as Prime Minister amid Brexit and the pandemic. He has already written a dozen books but has yet to complete a biography of William Shakespeare that was first promised eight years ago.

Last month, Johnson revealed he had received £1million from Christopher Harborne, a tycoon who previously funded the Brexit Party. The money went to an organization called The Office of Boris Johnson Ltd, set up to support the former Prime Minister’s public life by funding an office staffed by three.

Meanwhile, the former Prime Minister has been living in a £20million estate on one of the UK’s most expensive streets in Knightsbridge, central London, for the past five months. The house is owned by Lady Carole Bamford, wife of JCB construction equipment tycoon and fellow Tory Lord Anthony Bamford.

In the register, Johnson has listed the “concessional use of accommodation for me and my family” as worth £74,000 since September 2. Johnson’s aide confirmed that he paid some rent for the property.

Johnson has overtaken Theresa May, his predecessor as Prime Minister, as the highest-earning MP in the current Parliament. She has received £2.5million since the last election in December 2019.