Boris Johnson: MPs support the Partigit report because only seven voted against it

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By Becky Morton, Political Correspondent Jun 19, 2023

Updated 2 hours ago

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Watch: MPs approve Johnson Partigit report

MPs have backed a report which found Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs about closing parties in Downing Street.

The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly in favor of the report, by 354 to seven.

The inter-party committee report found Johnson had repeated wrongdoing when he said Covid rules were followed 10th of all times.

Several of Johnson’s allies questioned the committee’s impartiality and said they would vote against it.

Former Prime Minister Theresa May, Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan were among the top Conservatives who endorsed the report’s findings.

Among the Conservative MPs who voted against were Sir Bill Cash, Nick Fletcher, Adam Holloway, Carl McCartney, Joy Morrissey and Heather Wheeler – while 118 Tories voted for them.

No vote was recorded for the 225 deputies, either because they abstained from voting or did not show up to vote.

Johnson had asked his supporters not to vote against the report, with sources close to the former prime minister saying it had no practical impact now and had resigned.

But his critics have suggested the move was designed to avoid revealing his low level of support among Conservative MPs.

Some abstained, while others did not show up to vote at all.

Johnson’s allies who spoke in the debate but did not vote include Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Leah Nessi.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not attend the debate and refused to say how he would have voted, stating that he did not want to influence others.

The Liberal Democrats accused Mr Sunak of a “cowardly withdrawal”.

The party’s deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “His failure to vote says all you need to know about this prime minister’s lack of leadership.”

A Labor Party spokesman said Mr Sunak was “too weak to lead a party so divided over governance”.

The vote meant Mr Johnson lost his right to a Parliamentary Pass, which gives access to certain parts of Parliament, as this was one of the report’s recommendations.

MPs’ Privileges Committee, which has a Conservative majority, has been asked to investigate whether Johnson misled MPs about what he knew about parties held in Downing Street during the Covid lockdowns – dubbed the Partiget scandal.

Its report concluded that Mr Johnson had made multiple intentionally misleading statements to Parliament about the events in No. 10.

Before the report was published, Johnson announced that he was resigning as an MP, describing the committee as a “kangaroo court”.

The report found that Mr Johnson had committed further “contempt” of Parliament by attacking the committee, increasing the severity of the recommended sentence.

The committee subsequently recommended Johnson be suspended for 90 days – a long ban by the latter’s standards – as well as being denied Parliamentary passage, to which a former MP would normally be entitled.

If he were still an MP, the suspension could have resulted in a by-election in his constituency.

Speaking during a House of Commons debate ahead of the vote, Ms May said backing the report would be a “small but important step in restoring people’s confidence” in Parliament.

She said it was “important to show the public that there is no rule for them and another for us”.

Mrs May urged her fellow MPs to vote in support of the report “to uphold standards of public life, to show that we are all aware of the responsibility we have to the people we serve, and to help restore confidence in our parliamentary democracy”.

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Rishi Sunak has been asked several times if he will take part in the debate on Boris Johnson’s Partigit report and vote in the House of Commons.

During the debate, Mr Johnson’s supporters spoke out against the report’s findings.

Nessi, who was Johnson’s private secretary in Parliament, told MPs that she could see no evidence that he had deliberately misled Parliament.

She questioned the committee’s impartiality and suggested the process was “political opportunism” for people who did not like Mr Johnson.

Former minister Sir Jacob, who was knighted by Mr Johnson in honor of his resignation, described the proposed 90-day suspension as a “punishment of retaliation”.

Responding to accusations that some of Johnson’s allies had tried to discredit the committee’s work, Mr Rees-Mogg said it was “entirely legitimate to criticize the conduct of the committee” and its members.

But the committee’s chairwoman, Labor MP Harriet Harman, said committee members should “endure a campaign of threats, intimidation and harassment aimed at challenging the legality of the investigation”.

She defended her impartiality, after Sir Jacob pointed to her previous tweets criticizing Mr Johnson, saying she had offered to step down as president after the tweets surfaced, but said she had been reassured by the government that she should continue in her role.

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Watch: Harriet Harman answers Jacob Rees-Mogg who sparked her ‘famous tweets’ about Boris Johnson

Earlier, it was not clear if there would be a formal vote on the report – forcing MPs to register to either vote for, against or abstain – but Labor has forced one.

It was a free vote for Tory members, meaning that party directors – known as whips – did not instruct them how to vote.

Opening the debate, House of Commons leader Dame Mordaunt said she would vote to support the report, adding: “The integrity of our institutions matters.”

However, she said “all members must make their own decisions and others must leave them alone to do so”.

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