2023-06-20 00:22:00
The British Parliament sanctioned Boris Johnson afterr “deliberately lie” to lawmakers about illegal parties being held during the coronavirus lockdown in Downing Street. Although it only provides for a sanction, it is a measure with a symbolic impact that seeks to put an end to the scandal known as Partygate which had a deleterious effect on the Conservative Party.
The report of the Privileges Committee was approved on Monday June 19 by a large majority of 354 votes to 7 in the midst of a heated debate in which Conservative lawmakers were granted freedom of vote.
Beyond the political weight of the measure, Boris Johnson will have to face disciplinary sanctions: he will be stripped of his parliamentary pass, a special permit that allows former lawmakers to access Westminster, which is considered a privilege. The rest of the sanctions provided for these cases, which seek to preserve the “integrity” of Parliament, may not be applied due to Johnson’s resignation from his seat in June this year, when he denounced a “political montage” by his detractors.
Boris Johnson resigned from his bench on June 9 to avoid further sanctions against him.
The finding of the Committee on Privileges
After emerging as one of the architects of Brexit from the referendum of 2016, Johnson enjoyed a popularity that catapulted him to the first magistracy in December 2019 in what was the biggest electoral victory for the Conservative Party in decades. However, two and a half years later he was forced to resign as prime minister in July 2022 in line with the repeated scandals that have plagued his government, including Partygate.
Since then, Parliament has commissioned a special commission to investigate whether Johnson had deliberately lied to the deputies when he stated that the anticovid rules imposed by himself during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns were always respected in his offices.
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The result dictated by the Commission was devastating. The report found that Johnson committed a “repeated contempt“to Parliament and tried”undermine the parliamentary process“. He was the first head of government in history who was found to have intentionally misled Parliament.
On June 9, before these conclusions were made public, Johnson resigned his congressional seat, denouncing a “political montage” of his detractors. In this way, he avoided the “humiliating” sanction provided for in these cases: suspension for 90 days, something that would not have favored him in his aspiration to renew his mandate in his constituency. After his decision, the commission could only recommend to the deputies that they withdraw his parliamentary pass.
Boris Johnson.
The debate in Parliament
The report against Johnson caused divisions within the Conservative Party between critics and supporters of the former prime minister. Figures like the former Prime Minister Theresa May, of whom Johnson was foreign minister and successor, They highlighted the “rigor” of the report submitted to a vote. May had already anticipated that she would vote against her successor at 10 Downing Street and urged her colleagues to do the same to “help restore the trust at our parlamentary democracy“.
“It is not easy to judge friends or colleagues, but friendship, working together, should not get in the way of doing what is right,” he argued. “I congratulate the members of the Privileges Committee for their painful work and for their dignity in the face of attacks on their integrity,” she added.
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For their part, a few Johnson loyalists voted against it, such as Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, who considered it “ridiculous” to withdraw Johnson’s access to Parliament, the only sanction that could be applied to him. “It is absolutely legitimate to criticize the conduct of a commission, to criticize the members of a commission. That is politics,” he said.
“Our policy is confrontational (…) and we can accuse people in this House within the limits of order, of saying things with which we do not agree,” he said. “We have to defend freedom of expression. Frankly, if politicians can’t take criticism, you have to wonder what they are doing in politics,” he stressed.
The vote on the report against Johnson caused divisions in the House of Commons.
Criticism of Rishi Sunak
Boris Johnson’s supporters still include those who predicted that he will return to the electoral contest, taking advantage of the loss of popularity of his successor, Rishi Sunak, who promised to restore political integrity to the government but is mired in a historic cost-of-living crisis that it has failed to reduce.
Rather than oppose the report, the former prime minister called on his supporters to abstain, and many Conservative MPs were absent from the session. Sunak did not attend the meeting, which earned him harsh criticism from the opposition.
The Partygate scandal and Johnson’s resignation
The Privileges Committee opened its own investigation in June 2022 into a scandal known as “Partygate” and which had already led to reprimands from both the Police and an independent report commissioned by the Government, by virtue of which it became clear that Johnson and his team had breached the regulations in force.
“He deceived the Chamber in a matter of the utmost importance for the Chamber and for the population and he did it repeatedly,” reads the text, which even details that this level of manipulation is unprecedented for a head of government in excercise.
After resigning, Johnson charged hard against the committee, calling it biased and denouncing that he only wanted to expel him from the House of Commons. “It’s a lie that he misled the House,” he said, in a statement in which he said that “not for a minute” did he think his conduct could be blamed “on the facts.” In this sense, he highlighted that “I believed” that parties “were legal” and extended responsibility to “all” members of his “like-minded” cabinet.
“This report is a farce. I was wrong to believe in the committee and in its good faith,” Johnson said, calling it “a terrible day for deputies and for democracy.” “It is up to the people of this country to decide who sits in Parliament, not Harriet Harman,” he said.
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