Yesterday, MPs voted to approve the Commons privileges committee’s damning report into Boris Johnson and his statements to the house on so-called Partygate (as in partying during Covid lockdowns while many people were complying and unable to see their ill or dying loved ones). The info in the link explains exactly where and how this misleading of parliament occurred.
The report found that Johnson repeatedly misled parliament about lockdown parties at Downing Street.
On 9 June 2023, after receiving a draft of the committee’s final report, Boris Johnson resigned as an MP, contemptuously suggesting he had been tried by a ‘kangaroo court’. What a to-do.
The committee’s final report, setting out its conclusions and recommendations, was published on 15 June 2023. Investigations had not properly begun until after the Metropolitan Police concluded its investigation into alleged parties in Downing Street, and after the final publication of the Gray Report.
354 members voted for the report, including Sir Geoffrey Cox, Conservative MP for Torridge and West Devon.
7 voted against it. They were all allies of the disgraced former Prime Minister.
They questioned the impartiality of the report but anyone who saw Harriet Harman respond to a question on the issue posed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, will see that this was a nonsense. The Privileges Committee, incidentally, has a Conservative majority.
Shamefully, 225 MPs either abstained or did not turn up to vote. Scott Mann, MP for North Cornwall was one of these. He had previously described Johnson’s apology following Sue Gray’s Report as “sincere and heartfelt” and that he had genuine regret (at breaking the eleventh commandment?)
The report additionally found that Johnson had committed further “contempts” of Parliament by attacking the committee and subsequently recommended a long 90-day suspension for Boris Johnson, as well as denying him the parliamentary pass, which he would normally be entitled to as a former MP.