JACOB Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries, and Priti Patel are among the numerous Tory politicians named in a damning report as having taken “it upon themselves to undermine procedures of the House of Commons”.
Zac Goldsmith, a Tory peer and a close friend of Johnson, was also named explicitly in the report. Goldsmith is currently a minister in the Foreign Office.
The Privileges Committee highlighted comments both to the press and on social media from those Conservatives and four others: Mark Jenkinson, Michael Fabricant, Brendan Clarke-Smith, and Andrea Jenkyns.
All eight of the Tory politicians may be guilty of contempt of parliament.
Two further Conservative peers, Peter Cruddas and Stephen Greenhalgh, were also named in the annex of the report.
MPs on the committee said that two of the named Tories "mounting the most vociferous attacks ... did so from the platform of their own hosted TV shows".
Rees-Mogg's is a presenter for GB News, while Dorries (below) works with Talk TV.
The committee’s report further said of all seven named politicians: “Those members did not choose to engage through any proper process such as the submission of letters or evidence to our inquiry, but by attacking the members of the committee, in order to influence their judgment."
Their aim was to “influence the outcome of the inquiry”, “impede the work of the committee by inducing members to resign from it”, “discredit the committee’s conclusions if those conclusions were not what they wanted” and “discredit the committee as a whole”, it said.
It will be "for the House to consider what further action, if any, to take in respect of Members of the House referred to in this special report", the report notes.
An annex included by the Privileges Committee contains what MPs call “some of the most disturbing examples of the co-ordinated campaign to interfere with the work of the committee”.
Included in the listed remarks are multiple comments from Dorries, including a tweet from June in which she said: “We also need to keep a close eye on the careers of the Conservative MPs who sat on that committee. Do they suddenly find themselves on chicken runs into safe seats? Gongs? Were promises made? We need to know if they were.
“Justice has to be seen to be done at all levels of this process.”
The committee also notes comments by Rees-Mogg, citing his remarks on GB News in March: “The Privileges Committee is not even a proper legal set-up. It has a gossamer of constitutional propriety thrown over it, but it is in fact a political committee against Boris Johnson.”
Patel was also named for comments on GB News, where she said: “How can a handful of Members of Parliament in a Committee, you know, really be that objective in light of some of the individual comments that have been made. I don’t want to name people, but you know, it is a fact, the lack of transparency — the lack of accountability ... I think there is a culture of collusion quite frankly involved here.”
Jenkinson, Clarke-Smith, and Fabricant all quickly took to social media to defend themselves after seeing they had been named in the report.
Clarke-Smith (below) claimed naming him raised "serious questions about free speech", Fabricant insisted he stood by his statement, while Jenkinson claimed the committee had "literally just performed a Twitter search for terms they don’t like" and insisted he should not have been included in the report.
The report lists multiple cases which could be considered contempt of parliament. It notes: "Abusing or intimidating members on account of 'their conduct in their capacity of a member' or imputations 'that a member nominated to a select committee would not be able to act impartially in that service' are included among those contempts."
Two Tory peers, ennobled by Johnson, were also named in the annex of the report and linked to a Conservative Post email campaign which described the inquiry as “nothing but a politically motivated attack” and as “deeply flawed, biased, and unfair”.
"Over 600 emails to Conservative members of the committee followed [the campaign]," the report noted, adding: "They included emails appearing to come from Lord [Peter] Cruddas and Lord [Stephen] Greenhalgh."
The follow-up report comes after the Privileges Committee found Johnson guilty of repeatedly and deliberately misleading MPs.
The former prime minister resigned as an MP in disgrace rather than face a 30-day suspension from the Commons and the recall petition it would have triggered in his constituency.
You can find the full report here.
