'THAT'S RUBBISH'
Boris Johnson slams Partygate probe’s ‘deranged conclusion’ after being accused of ‘intimidating’ committee
BORIS Johnson has this morning launched a blistering attack on the Commons Partygate report - slamming its "deranged findings".
The furious ex-PM lashed out after the inquiry ruled he had deliberately misled MPs by claiming no rules were broken in No10.
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In a highly-critical report ,the Privileges Committee recommended tough sanctions including a 90-day Commons ban and being stripped of his ex-MP pass.
Raging BoJo - who last week resigned as an MP in anticipation of the ruling - let rip at the "kangaroo court" in a no-holds-barred onslaught.
Decrying a political stitch-up led by the Labour chair Harriet Harman, he said: "This report is a charade. I was wrong to believe in the Committee or its good faith.
"The terrible truth is that it is not I who has twisted the truth to suit my purposes. It is Harriet Harman and her Committee.
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"This is a dreadful day for MPs and for democracy. This decision means that no MP is free from vendetta, or expulsion on trumped up charges by a tiny minority who want to see him or her gone from the Commons."
On a dramatic day:
- The Privileges Committee recommended Boris Johnson be suspended for 90 days if he were still an MP
- MPs will vote on whether the ex-PM should lose his Commons pass
- BoJo was found to have misled MPs in five separate ways
- He was accused of stirring intimidation of the committee's members through his attacks
- Allies of Mr Johnson rallied round this morning to warn he was being treated "very, very unfairly"
- The byelection for his seat is set to be held on July 20 for his replacement
The 14-month probe today ruled that the ex-PM misled MPs over lockdown-breaking gatherings in No10.
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In a 30,000-word paper, the committee of MPs skewered Mr Johnson for repeatedly claiming that no rules were broken.
They threw out his claims that when he insisted "no rules were broken" it was an honest mistake - saying there was no way he could not have known.
And they said some of his denials and explanations were "so disingenuous" he was "closing his mind to the truth".
The Committee further rapped Mr Johnson for publicly questioning their integrity, which they say led to "intimidation" of members.
His behaviour in recent days meant the recommended sanction - to be voted on by MPs - was dramatically upgraded to 90 days.
BORIS FIGHTBACK
The former PM shot back at the results as "complete tripe", a "charade", and "rubbish", blasting them of "wilfully missing the point".
And he accused their arguments of being "so threadbare that it belongs in one of Bernard Jenkin’s nudist colonies."
Tory MP Sir Bernard - one of the committee's members - is an occasional naturist.
AT A GLANCE: 5 FINDINGS FROM THE REPORT
WHAT DOES THE REPORT CLAIM?
Boris knowingly misled MPs over Partygate
- The nub of the 108-page report is that Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs when he claimed no rules were broken in No10. The Committee says he misled the Commons in five separate ways.
Boris could have received a 90-day Commons suspension
- Had Boris not resigned as an MP, the recommended sanction would have been a 90-day Commons suspension. The Committee says they originally decided on sanction strong enough to trigger a byelection - 10 days minimum - but they decided to drastically upgrade this when he began accusing them of a “witch hunt” in public statements. All recommended sanctions are voted on by MPs.
Boris may have his ex-MP pass blocked
- The Committee wants Boris to lose his ex-MP parliamentary pass in light of his statements attacking the findings. John Bercow had this sanction applied last year for bullying.
MPs accuse Boris of ‘closing his mind to the truth’
- During their 14-month inquiry the MPs accuse Mr Johnson of making “denials and explanations so disingenuous that they were by their very nature deliberate attempts to mislead the Committee and the House”. They say this amounted to effectively having “closed his mind to the truth”.
Boris is having none of it
- In a defiant statement today, Mr Johnson tore into the Committee’s findings and branded the report as a “charade”. Decrying a political stitch-up, he blasts: “This is a dreadful day for MPs and for democracy.”
He said of claims he he misled MPs: "This is rubbish. It is a lie. In order to reach this deranged conclusion, the Committee is obliged to say a series of things that are patently absurd, or contradicted by the facts.
"I believed, correctly, that these events were reasonably necessary for work purposes.
"We were managing a pandemic. We had hundreds of staff engaged in what was sometimes a round-the-clock struggle against covid. Their morale mattered for that fight. It was important for me to thank them.
" But don’t just listen to me. Take it from the Metropolitan Police. The police investigated my role at all of those events. In no case did they find that what I had done was unlawful. Above all it did not cross my mind – as I spoke in the House of Commons – that the events were unlawful.
"Why would we have had an official photographer if we believed we were breaking the law?
" We didn’t believe that what we were doing was wrong, and after a year of work the Privileges Committee has found not a shred of evidence that we did."
RALLYING ROUND
Some Tory MPs came out in support of their former leader this morning.
Ex-Cabinet Minister Esther McVey said: "Demands calling for Boris to be denied a former MPs pass to parliament are absolutely absurd & utterly unnecessary."
Backbencher Brendan Clarke-Smith piled in: "I am appalled at what I have read and the spiteful, vindictive and overreaching conclusions of the report."
MPs are set to vote on what sanction to dish out on Monday - which will be Mr Johnson's birthday.
Rishi Sunak will give Tory MPs a free vote on whether punish their former leader.
Mr Johnson himself agreed to the Privileges Committee investigation while he was PM.
It was the third Partygate probe following separate inquiries by Sue Gray and the Met Police.
In a surprise twist last night, it was revealed that one of the top committee members himself was revealed to have attended his own lockdown party.
The former prime minister called for Sir Bernard Jenkin to resign and wrote to the committee last night claiming that he should have recused himself from the investigation.
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Sir Bernard is alleged to have attended an event at which drinks and cake were served to mark his wife's 65th birthday in December 2020.
The Sun has approached Sir Bernard for comment. He told he did not “attend any drinks parties during lockdown”.
HARRY COLE: A Soviet show trial or curtains for Boris?
By HARRY COLE, Political Editor
WHEN Boris Johnson threw in the towel late on Friday evening it was clear that the Commons' Partygate probe was going to be withering.
But not even the ex-PM’s most devoted supporters in Parliament predicted quite how damning the long-awaited 30,000 word findings of the Privileges Committee would be.
A whopping 90 day suspension, partly slapped on him for “disingenuously” defending himself against what to many appears to be a predetermined guilty verdict from Harriet Harman and co.
Some of the same MPs on this committee voted for a suspension just a fraction of that for the ex-SNP MP Margaret Ferrier who literally travelled the length of the country knowing she had Covid.
You don’t have to be a BoJo superfan to question that logic.
Boris supporters say that, amid the pompous and pious language of the report, little truck has been given to anyone or any evidence that went against their central finding that Johnson deliberately lied to the Commons.
Instead, they say, the report reads more like a politburo show trial denouncing a Soviet rebel than a fair-minded attempt to get to the bottom of the affair.
While his many, many critics are practically dancing a merry jig around the TV studios in Westminster today, the anger from Johnson’s allies is ferocious.
As ex-minister Brendan Clarke-Smith hit out: “I am appalled at what I have read and the spiteful, vindictive and overreaching conclusions of the report.
“I won’t be supporting the recommendations and will be speaking against them both publicly and in the House on Monday. I’m backing fairness and justice - not kangaroo courts.”
And even senior Tories furious with Johnson at his attacks on Rishi Sunak in the last ten days were shocked by the report’s findings.
One told me: “I'm very pissed off with Boris and want him to go away but this report is a complete joke. The sanctions are so ludicrously excessive and, Bernard Jenkin aside, I'm staggered that any Tory MP would vote for it.”
And they predicted MPs that do nod this through the Commons next week face a backlash from local party members, adding: “I suspect they will be having some serious issues with their associations and wouldn't be remotely surprised if they were given the boot.”
Both the Committee and Boris Johnson say today is a bad day for democracy.
While the salt-smelling inquisitors said their findings “go to the very heart of democracy”, Johnson slammed them for behaving in an “anti-democratic way, to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination – that is beneath contempt.”
That today has damaged faith in our political system is pretty much the only thing they all agree on.
The question now is which side will Rishi Sunak come down on?
Boris supporters hoping the PM will step in to water down the findings when it is voted on next week should not get their hopes up.
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