U.S. woman admitted affair with Johnson, U.K. report says

LONDON — A U.S. businesswoman who received thousands of pounds from a government agency that Boris Johnson controlled when he was mayor of London told friends that she and Johnson were having a sexual affair, according to a British news report this weekend.

The revelation in the Sunday Times of London intensifies the scandal hanging over Johnson as he tries to navigate an impasse in Parliament over his Brexit plans. Several agencies are investigating accusations that he gave favourable treatment to the businesswoman, Jennifer Arcuri, now 34, by helping her secure sponsorship money and taking her on trade missions that she was not qualified for.

On Friday, a monitor at London’s City Hall referred Johnson to a police watchdog for a possible investigation into the case, saying that the accusations, if true, could amount to misconduct in public office.

Both Johnson and Arcuri have denied any wrongdoing. And a government minister from Johnson’s Conservative Party dismissed that as “an obviously politicized complaint.” The monitor was a career official who also worked at City Hall during Johnson’s tenure as London mayor, from 2008 to 2016.

The new revelations were published as Johnson arrived with his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, in Manchester this weekend for the opening of the Conservative Party conference. The conference has been overshadowed by a Supreme Court ruling Tuesday that Johnson’s suspension of Parliament at the height of the Brexit crisis was “unlawful.”

Johnson was forced to return to the House of Commons three weeks earlier than planned to face defiant lawmakers who are determined to stop him from pulling Britain out of the European Union without a deal governing future relations.

The Sunday Times article this weekend fills in some details of an episode that has hounded Johnson during what has been a wobbly start to his national leadership.

The newspaper reported that Arcuri had confided to four friends that she was having an affair with Johnson when he was mayor, a relationship that began soon after they met in 2012, while he was campaigning for his second term as mayor. Johnson was 47 and in his second marriage at the time. Arcuri was 27 and finishing a graduate program in business in London.

Johnson gave Arcuri’s first venture a major lift by appearing at four networking events for entrepreneurs and policymakers that her company had organized, the newspaper said.

She received 11,500 pounds (around US$18,700) in sponsorship money from an organization that was overseen by Johnson as mayor. And she was given coveted spots on trade missions with the mayor to Malaysia, New York, Singapore and Tel Aviv.

In some instances, Johnson’s office intervened to add her to the roster even though she did not meet the criteria for trade delegates, the report said.

Another business later set up by Arcuri, Hacker House, was awarded a central government grant of 100,000 pounds (about US$163,000) in February, before Johnson became prime minister.

Johnson’s serial philandering has frequently made headlines in Britain. Earlier in his career, he was fired from the Conservative Party’s leadership team after falsely denying reports of an extramarital affair.

But the new accusations have put Johnson under a level of scrutiny that he has rarely received during his turbulent career.