The Commons voted overwhelmingly in support of the report, by 354 to 7.
Conservative MPs who voted against included Sir Bill Cash, Nick Fletcher, Adam Holloway, Karl McCartney, Joy Morrissey and Heather Wheeler - while 118 Tories voted in favour.
No vote was recorded for 225 MPs, because they either abstained or did not turn up to vote.
Johnson allies who spoke in the debate but did not vote include Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lia Nici.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not attend the debate and has refused to say how he would have voted.
We did not need the verdict of the privileges committee to understand the flaws in Boris Johnson’s character. It was clear long before he became prime minister how manifestly unsuited he was for any kind of public office, let alone running the country. But a cross-party group of MPs last week published a damning report that outlined how he deliberately misled parliament about the scale and nature of wrongdoing in Downing Street during the pandemic.
As bad as the wrongdoing is the way Johnson sought to undermine the work of this committee that was mandated to investigate him by the House of Commons. Despite professing to deprecate claims that the committee was a “kangaroo court” or carrying out a “witch-hunt” in his oral evidence, this is language he liberally deployed once a draft version of the committee’s report was shared with him in confidence. He leaked its contents before publication and impugned the committee, the integrity of its members and the impartiality of its staff without any evidence and accused the committee of “forcing him out… anti-democratically” despite the democratic mandate the committee had to carry out its work and make recommendations to the Commons.
Like former president Donald Trump, this is former prime minister Boris Johnson seeking to undermine public confidence in the institutions and procedures of democracy for his own ends. It is the dangerous mark of a populist.
Johnson’s departure from politics does not close this shameful chapter for the Conservative party. Its MPs indulged him, backed him to be leader and prime minister, and kept him in No 10 long after it became patently clear he was the wrong person to govern in a national emergency. Sunak willingly served him as his chancellor. And so, as much as he might try to distance himself from Johnson in the wake of the committee’s report, Sunak is complicit in the former prime minister’s lies and his attacks on democracy.
Johnson may have dispatched himself from the Commons, but his dishonourable legacy survives on the Conservative benches.
I’m delighted that it went that way and delighted that his special pass to enter was taken away.
Having lied to Parliament he should be banned for life, but I’m glad he’s been shamed now
No credit to the Tories, those that voted in favour probably did it mostly because of public opinion
The ones I hold in total contempt are those that didn’t show up and didn’t vote. Didn’t even have the guts to nail their colours to the mast and vote against
Sunak et al should be ashamed of themselves, but of course they have no shame, only self-interest
Any decent person hearing what Johnson did and the evidence would have voted in support
Those that didn’t have shown that they aren’t decent people, including Sunak
We’ve had years of having a amoral PM with no integrity or principles running our country under Johnson, and look where it’s got us
A privileges committee report that could criticise Conservative MPs who attacked an inquiry into Boris Johnson may be released as early as next week, potentially plunging Rishi Sunak into renewed party infighting.
In the 106-page investigation that found Johnson misled MPs in repeatedly assuring the Commons he was unaware of lockdown-breaching parties, the Conservative-majority committee condemned what it called “a sustained attempt, seemingly coordinated” to undermine its members and the inquiry process.
While it is not known what the extra report will say, even if it does not name MPs it could anger Johnson’s supporters, jeopardising Sunak’s attempts to placate them.
Some of Johnson’s Tory allies have argued that whether or not they agree with the decision about misleading parliament, the committee’s decision to suspend him for 90 days – not enforceable as he has stepped down – and the special report show overreach.
I don’t know about the report showing overreach but BJ and his cronies definitely over-estimate themselves and think that they’re beyond reproach and above the law …
My MP abstained, not surprising he has himself been sanctioned by Parliament.
I disagree about Sunak, I think he did the right think by keeping out of the debate and vote.
It was not a Government Process, it was the House of Commons deciding itself, whether Boris had knowingly misled them, and agreeing a punishment themselves.
That is the important point, it was his Peers who decided he was guilty and who agreed a very harsh penalty.
If he had commented and voted , Boris would have the excuse that it was a Government
Boris Johnson’s allies are expected to be named in a report published on Thursday about potential “contempts of parliament” committed following the official Partygate inquiry.
The special report will raise issues encountered by the committee during its initial inquiry, including whether statements by Johnson’s supporters could constitute further breaches of parliamentary rules.
Given the committee can only investigate and impose sanctions on those referred to it by a motion passed by MPs, its report is expected to say the matter is one for the Commons as a whole to take forward.
Those who face being named in the report include Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary. Both were Johnson-era cabinet ministers and vocal critics throughout the privileges committee’s inquiry, calling it a “witch-hunt” and “kangaroo court”, respectively.
The Tory peer Peter Cruddas, handed a seat in the House of Lords by Johnson during his premiership, is also likely to be included after having called the inquiry a “political show trial”.
Other Tory MPs criticised in the report include Priti Patel and Lord Goldsmith, who is a serving minister.
There is uncertainty over how the issue of potential further breaches of privilege would be resolved. Given the current seven members of the committee could not adjudicate on a case that directly involved them, a new set of members may have to be found.
But doing so may prove difficult, as adjudicating on Johnson has proved an unenviable task. Some members received threats and were offered extra security in the lead-up to their final report being published.
The arrogance of Johnson’s Tory bully-boys (and girls) should now be addressed and terminated … but will it?
This special supplementary report puts on record our concern at the improper pressure brought to bear on the Committee and its members throughout this inquiry.
1 We are concerned in particular at the involvement of Members of both Houses in attempting to influence the outcome of the inquiry. Those Members did not choose to engage through any proper process such as the submission of letters or evidence to our inquiry, but by attacking the members of the Committee, in order to influence their judgement. Their aim was to (1) influence the outcome of the inquiry, (2) impede the work of the Committee by inducing members to resign from it, (3) discredit the Committee’s conclusions if those conclusions were not what they wanted, and (4) discredit the Committee as a whole.
What needs to be addressed is the campaign waged outside Parliament by some Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords to undermine the Committee. Those involved used newspapers and radio and there was extensive use of social media. There were many examples but the Committee is particularly concerned about attacks mounted by experienced colleagues, including a serving Minister of the Crown, a former Leader of the House and a former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and at least three Members of the House of Lords (one of whom is the serving Minister referred to above) who took it upon themselves to undermine procedures of the House of Commons. The former and current members of the Government we have referred to are Privy Counsellors.
Pressure was applied particularly to Conservative members of the Committee. This had the clear intention to drive those members off the Committee and so to frustrate the intention of the House that the inquiry should be carried out, or to prevent the inquiry coming to a conclusion which the critics did not want. There were also sustained attempts to undermine and challenge the impartiality of the Chair, who had been appointed to the Committee by unanimous decision of the House.
Inclusions:
Tweets and comments referred to in Paragraph 14 of the report
Conservative Post email campaign
Far be it from me to cast nasturtiums but the activities of the named Tories smack of fascism …
This is so reminiscent of the days of Stalin, get rid of an elected leader of a country, then his cohorts, then his close friends and then his family? Like Margaret Thatcher the left wouldn’t be satisfied until they are erased from memory and history.
You wouldn’t be referring to “witch-hunt”, “kangaroo court”, “culture of collusion”, “gross miscarriage of justice” with regard to an “investigation (which) is deeply flawed, biased, and unfair, and is nothing but a politically motivated attack against our former Prime Minister (in order) to reputationally smear and
impugn Boris Johnson MP”, would you …
Who is that then, this ‘left’? Johnson got kicked out no.10 by his own ministers. He then got punished by a Tory majority on the privileges select committee. He was punished because it was shown that his decision to deny, refute and thus knowingly lie to parliament was driven simply by the vanity of his habitual lying. He made a series of bad decisions in lying and, this time for once, did not get away with it. I’m not seeing anyone on the left making anything happen here.
So its not much like Stalin at all, is it? It is a bit more like the start of stirrings to regain behaviour by politicians that is decent and respectful of parliament.
Ohhh, I am so sorry, there was me thinking that the Conservatives were just looking after themselves and threw Boris to the wolves just to save their own arses and bowed down to the baying media.
No body told me they were actually were totally above reproach and could do no wrong. Good grief!
Yes … it reminded me of the hyperbolic response of the current crop of Johnson “cohorts” who have adopted pan-Trumpian connotation and expression, as illustrated in the PC report, from which I have constructed the quote.
I find the self-important strutter, Rees-Mogg a bit of an enigma - he seems to hover in the background but is always ready to pontificate on an issue when the occasion arises - Parliament’s master filibuster.
I can never decide whether Rees-Mogg is an ineffectual side-liner trying to generate an impression that he is important - or whether he is really a Machiavellian puppet-master who prefers to put other people centre-stage and manipulate them from the sidelines.
Beneath all that punctilious faux-politeness, he has a very unpleasant, arrogant and sarcastic side to him.
Thanks for sharing. Its always informative to see the Express’ view of such things. And I thought they valued the UK parliament and its standards. Obvs not.
Nadine Dorries, during an interview on Talk TV with Vanessa Feltz, spoke about the committee of MPs which recently found he misled Parliament over Covid breaches at No 10.
“Defending the truth is incredibly important… it’s not over yet, there’s no committee of MPs that should be allowed to distort the truth,” she said. “I did not go to Westminster to watch processes take place, to watch statements made which are a corruption of the truth.”
Ms Dorries told the TV presenter the privileges committee had proved that “MPs cannot mark their own homework”, and that she would welcome an external body overseeing parliamentary processes.
Clearly, as an ardent disciple of, and believer in, Boris Johnson, the notorious proven, well-documented, liar, “Mad Nads” has a singularly distorted perception of “truth”, as highlighted in the CP special report, and here she is again, using same opinion-oriented TV channel, to vent her uncontrollable spleen in defiance of both the CP and ACOBA, while continuing to claim her MP’s salary and expenses.
