Supporters of outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson have criticised the Commons Privileges Committee investigation into his conduct around Partygate, with one minister calling the probe “rigged” and a “witch hunt”.
The investigation was first launched in April, after news of lockdown gatherings in Downing Street and Whitehall had become public knowledge.
The investigation is seeking to ascertain whether Johnson deliberately misled the Commons when he repeatedly insisted that all Covid rules had been observed within Downing Street, when grilled on the matter by MPs.
Johnson has been accused of misleading Parliament multiple times by opposition MPs after the Metropolitan Police’s investigation later deemed that rules had not been followed and issued fines to 83 people, including the PM himself.
Since then, Johnson has conceded that his original statements to the Commons were inaccurate but maintained his innocence by claiming that he believed them to be true at the time. He vehemently denies deliberately misleading his colleagues and has promised to co-operate with the Committee’s investigation in full.
However, the Committee recently judged that it would not need to prove that Johnson had deliberately misled Parliament to find him guilty of breaking parliamentary rules and issue a sanction to him. The Committee announced that it could still deem Johnson guilty of “contempt of Parliament”, even without evidence of intentional misleading.
This revelation has sparked backlash from Johnson allies.
A sanction handed to the departing prime minister could prove as severe as a parliamentary suspension. Should Johnson be suspended from the Commons for more than 10 days as an outcome of the probe, it could lead to him having to contest a by-election in his Uxbridge & South Ruislip constituency to retain his status as an MP.
Culture secretary Nadine Dorries called the Committee proceedings “Machiavellian” and the “means to a by-election”.
The Privileges Committee is cross-party but does have a Tory majority, and Dorries has urged those Conservatives to “have no part” in the probe into their departing leader.
Dorries added: “If this witch hunt continues, it will be the most egregious abuse of power witnessed in Westminster.”
Conservative backbencher Michael Fabricant accused the Privileges Committee of conspiring to “get rid” of Johnson by “changing the rules", while peer Lord Goldsmith called the inquiry “rigged” and an “obscene abuse of power”.
One Conservative on the Committee, Sir Bernard Jenkin, has accused Dorries of attempting to “discredit” its work and talked up its “duty” to carry out the investigation.
Since the criticisms of the inquiry, the Conservative chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris has instructed Tory MPs not to comment any further on the investigation, to avoid comments being “misinterpreted” by the party’s opponents and used maliciously.
He wrote to Conservative MPs: “May I urge caution against any further comments in the media about the Privileges Committee and especially its clerk and members.
“Invariably these comments will be misinterpreted by those who do not wish to help us.”
Photo by GOV.UK on Wikimedia Commons
