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Several of Boris Johnson’s closest political allies have been censured for “contempts of parliament” and disparaging MPs investigating the partygate scandal, in a report by the House of Commons privileges committee published on Thursday.
Seven Conservative MPs, including former cabinet ministers Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries, and Dame Priti Patel, were called out for “some of the most disturbing examples of the co-ordinated campaign to interfere” with the committee’s work.
In total eight Tory politicians, including Lord Zac Goldsmith, were criticised for attacking committee members in an effort to influence the outcome of the investigation into whether Johnson misled parliament about Downing Street parties held during coronavirus restrictions. They were also censured for seeking to impede the work of the committee and discredit its conclusions.
The committee stopped short of calling for disciplinary action against the those named in the report, noting it “will be for the [Commons] to consider what further action, if any, to take in respect of members of the House referred to in this special report”.
However, it concluded that future investigations would need “more explicit protection” and called on parliament to introduce rules that would prohibit any interference in their work, as exists for investigations into breaches of the MPs’ code of conduct.
The stinging rebuke of senior figures in Johnson’s government will only add to the public’s ire about the conduct of members of the ruling Conservative party who have become embroiled in a series of controversies in recent years, during and after the coronavirus pandemic.
The report said that some of the most “vociferous” attacks came from experienced politicians who hosted their own TV shows and who “would have known that during the course of an investigation it was not possible for the privileges committee to respond”.
Dorries, for example, is name-checked for saying on her show on Talk TV that committee members “have demonstrated very clearly that they have decided early on to find [Johnson] guilty . . . They changed the rules, lowered the bar and inserted the vague term reckless into the terms of reference.”
She went on to refer to the committee as a “kangaroo court” that will come to “a disgraceful and possibly unlawful conclusion with serious reputational consequences”.
Rees-Mogg is also called out for saying on GB News that the committee is “not even a proper legal set-up” and is “in fact a political committee against Boris Johnson”.
The others named in the report were Mark Jenkinson, Michael Fabricant, Brendan Clarke-Smith and Dame Andrea Jenkyns. None of those identified responded to requests for comment.
But Fabricant wrote on Twitter: “I stand by my statement. Some of the members of the privileges committee treated their witness, Boris Johnson, with contempt by gestures and other actions . . . Respect for the committee needs to be earned.”
Jenkinson also took to Twitter and said the report had misrepresented a tweet he had written about a “witch hunt of Boris Johnson by the media” as referring to the committee’s probe, which he said was a sign of “gross over-reach” by the committee.
The committee’s original 108-report into the partygate scandal, which recommended suspending Johnson from parliament for 90 days was approved by 354 votes to seven in parliament last week. But Johnson had already quit as an MP ahead of the report’s official publication.
Only six Tories, including veteran Brexiter Sir Bill Cash, opposed the report, while UK prime minister Rishi Sunak faced criticism for not showing up to vote at all.
The report, which was published earlier this month, found that Johnson had committed five contempts of parliament, including deliberately misleading MPs about the partygate scandal and being complicit in a campaign of abuse towards the MPs that undertook the probe.
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