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Senior Tory says PM and MPs should respect committee's findings as Monday's vote looms.
Sir Jake Berry, the Conservative party chair when Liz Truss was prime minister and a Boris Johnson supporter, told ITV's Good Morning Britain this morning that he would "certainly" be voting against the privileges committee report on Monday. Explaining why, he said:
I think both the conclusions and, to some extent, the way the committee was made up in terms of this report are wrong.
Berry also said he was concerned about the way the committee was trying to close down criticism of its decisions. He said:
For the first time in my parliamentary career, I'm afraid to talk about a report or the findings of a committee of parliament, because they have threatened MPs that if they do so, they themselves will be subject to the sorts of sanctions. It's an attack on free speech. It's an absolute disgrace and it rather begs the question that if the committee is so certain and so happy with their findings, why are they trying to stop any debate on this, to gag MPs and prevent them talking about it.
For the first time in my parliamentary career, I'm afraid to talk about a report or the findings of a committee of parliament, because they have threatened MPs that if they do so, they themselves will be subject to the sorts of sanctions.
It's an attack on free speech. It's an absolute disgrace and it rather begs the question that if the committee is so certain and so happy with their findings, why are they trying to stop any debate on this, to gag MPs and prevent them talking about it.
Berry was referring to a passage in the committee's report yesterday saying it would be publishing a follow-up report dealing with MPs, and others, who have sought to undermine the inquiry into Johnson. It said it was concerned about "a sustained attempt, seemingly coordinated, to undermine the committee's credibility and, more worryingly, that of those members serving on it".
This has led to Berry, and other Johnsonites, thinking or saying that they are at risk of being sanctioned for expressing any criticism of the committee's report.
The committee itself has not said what criticism is, and is not, legitimate. But it is not hard to work out roughly what it will say when it publishes its follow-up report. MPs are always free to criticise the findings of committees, including disciplinary committees like the privileges ones. But what it problematic is to impute bad faith. In other words, it is okay to say the committee got it wrong; but to say it got it wrong because it is biased or a kangaroo court etc, could take an MP into contempt of parliament territory.
Much more serious were the threats directed at MPs serving on the committee. At one point Conservative Post, an obscure Tory website linked to the pro-Johnsonite Conservative Democratic Organisation, was urging its readers to write to the Tory members of the privileges committee telling them to stand down from the inquiry. There was an implicit hint they were at risk of deselection if they didn't. Trying to intimidate members of a Commons committee carrying out an inquiry definitely counts as a contempt of parliament, and it is this sort of conduct that the follow-up report is likely to deprecate strongly.
Good morning. Boris Johnson is out of parliament, but Conservative party attempts to consign him to history don't seem to be working out too well and this morning Politico reports that he is indeed the mystery "erudite" columnist who will start writing for the Daily Mail tomorrow.
This is not good news for Rishi Sunak. The Mail is the most powerful voice in the Tory media ecosystem, and Johnson is someone whose best hopes of a political comeback depend on Sunak failing. When he was writing a weekly Daily Telegraph column before becoming PM, Johnson was paid £275,000 a year. Being at No 10 for three years has increased his earnings power considerably, and according to Politico he is being paid a "very high six-figure sum" for the Mail gig. At least someone did well out of the Johnson premiership.
The Conservative party is now preoccupied by the debate on the Johnson privileges committee report on Monday, and the issue of how MPs will vote on the motion to approve its conclusions and recommendations. Tory MPs will be on a one-line whip, which means attendance is voluntary, and it is assumed that most of them will stay away, and let it get approved on opposition votes. Yesterday No 10 refused to say whether Sunak would be in the Commons on Monday, and it is widely assumed that he will discover a pressing engagement in his diary that makes him unable to attend.
But this morning Damian Green, a former first secretary of state, told the Today programme that Sunak, and other Tory MPs, should vote in favour of the report instead of abstaining, because it was important to support the privileges committee process. He said:
At the moment I intend to vote for it because I think it's important that parliament respects its own systems. We have set up this committee, asked them to do this very serious report, they've come up with what is clearly a fairly damning set of conclusions, and I think if we, as parliament, run away from that, then it calls into question whether we should carry on having this kind of self regulation or whether it shouldn't all be outsourced to other people. And that would be a very serious step.
Asked if that meant it was important for Sunak to vote for the report, Green said that every MP would have to make up their own mind and he conceded that the PM was the "busiest" of all MP. But he also said:
I think, personally, it's such an important act that deliberately abstaining is not really rising to the importance of the occasion. Clearly, it is very, very unusual, if not unique, to have this kind of report on a former prime minister.
I think, personally, it's such an important act that deliberately abstaining is not really rising to the importance of the occasion.
Clearly, it is very, very unusual, if not unique, to have this kind of report on a former prime minister.
As Peter Walker and Sammy Gecsoyler report, Johnson's supporters are threatening to try to deselect Tories who do follow Green's advice and back the report.
Related: Boris Johnson allies threaten to target Tories who back Partygate report for deselection
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Prof Sir Michael Marmot and Prof Clare Bambra, who are both public health experts, give evidence to the Covid inquiry. At 2pm Katharine Hammond former director of the civil contingencies secretariat at the Cabinet Office, will give evidence.
11.30pm: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
12pm: Plaid Cymru holds a press conference to announce where Rhun ap Iorwerth is due to be confirmed as its new leader.
If you want to contact me, do try the "send us a message" feature. You'll see it just below the byline - on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a PC or a laptop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos - no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting too. I can't promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line, privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate), or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
This is from Jonathan Yerushalmy, who has been looking at how the papers have been covering the privileges committee report into Boris Johnson.
Related: 'End of the road for Johnson': what the papers say as the privileges committee delivers its verdict
In his Today programme interview Damian Green, the Tory former first secretary of state, also suggested that Boris Johnson should not be allowed to stand as a candidate for the party again.
Asked if he would be in favour of that, Green replied:
I think it will be quite difficult . I think if he had been more temperate in his response [to the privileges committee report], it would be easier for him to have a way back into active politics. But he's chosen to use phrase like 'kangaroo court'" and "witch hunt", and described the report as deranged, and that inevitably puts into question the integrity of people who have great integrity, the people who sit on the committee.
I think it will be quite difficult .
I think if he had been more temperate in his response [to the privileges committee report], it would be easier for him to have a way back into active politics. But he's chosen to use phrase like 'kangaroo court'" and "witch hunt", and described the report as deranged, and that inevitably puts into question the integrity of people who have great integrity, the people who sit on the committee.
This is also contention because Johnson's supporters would react with fury if Rishi Sunak were to declare that Johnson could not be a candidate again. In the Mail on Sunday at the weekend Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary and prominent Johnson cheerleader, wrote:
I would most strongly warn Conservative party managers against any attempt to block Boris if he seeks the party nomination in another seat. Any attempt to do so would shatter our fragile party unity and plunge the Conservatives into civil war.
I would most strongly warn Conservative party managers against any attempt to block Boris if he seeks the party nomination in another seat.
Any attempt to do so would shatter our fragile party unity and plunge the Conservatives into civil war.
Sunak probably has no intention of allowing Johnson to stand as a candidate again at or before the general election, but he is unlikely to say this publicly, at least in the near future. It is one of those questions that can be dismissed as hypothetical.