Boris Johnson’s preemptive resignation does not diminish from the significance of the cross-party findings
A seven-strong cross-party panel of MPs is expected to publish its verdict tomorrow on whether Boris Johnson misled parliament, after a last-minute delay.
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The Committee of Privileges has been investigating the former prime minister’s conduct during the Partygate saga, when he assured the House of Commons that Covid rules had been followed despite allegations of Downing Street parties during lockdown. According to The Times, the committee is expected to reject his argument that he made these claims in “good faith”.
Johnson, who quit as MP for Uxbridge & South Ruislip ahead of the report’s publication, has accused the committee of behaving like a “kangaroo court”.
What is the privileges committee?
The Committee of Privileges is appointed to “consider specific matters relating to privileges referred to it by the House”, says the parliamentary website.
It is not convened very often, said The Guardian, but is meant to look at possible breaches of privilege or contempt of parliament.
In this instance, said Sky News, privilege “is the ability of MPs to speak freely in the House of Commons without the threat of legal prosecution – and the ability to self-regulate”.
It was at one time merged with the Committee on Standards but split into its current form in 2013. The standards brief is “more broad”, said the broadcaster “and relates to matters of conduct”. It also includes members who are not MPs.
Who is on the committee?
Although the cross-party group of seven MPs has a Conservative majority, it is chaired by Labour’s Harriet Harman. She was chosen after the former chair, fellow Labour MP Chris Bryant, “recused himself from the probe because of his public comments attacking the ex-PM’s conduct”, said the i news site.
Also on the committee are Conservatives Sir Bernard Jenkin, Sir Charles Walker, Alberto Costa and Andy Carter, as well as Labour’s Yvonne Fovargue and the SNP’s Allan Dorans.
Despite its Conservative majority, Johnson and his allies have repeatedly attacked the motives and impartiality of the committee.
It is “quite shocking” how far some of Johnson’s supporters have gone in their attempt to “smear the committee”, said former senior parliamentary lawyer Alexander Horne in The Spectator.
Nadine Dorries, who was culture secretary under Johnson, accused Harman of holding a “strong position of bias” while Jacob Rees-Mogg, also a minister in Johnson’s Cabinet, said she presided over a “political committee against Boris Johnson”. Johnson himself complained about the “partisan tone and content” of the committee’s interim report which was published in March, and accused it of conducting a “witch hunt” in his resignation letter this week.
Why is Johnson under investigation?
Johnson is accused of making misleading statements to MPs on four separate occasions over Partygate.
In the Commons, he insisted no rules were broken but eventually corrected the record after receiving a fine over a “birthday party” event he attended in the Cabinet Room on 19 June 2020. The committee was convened to determine whether Johnson “knowingly or recklessly” misled MPs when he made his statements about Partygate in the House of Commons.
Did the committee believe him?
The committee is set to reject Johnson’s “central defence” that he was advised by senior officials that both Covid rules and guidance had been complied with at all times in Number 10 during the pandemic, said The Times.
It will conclude that officials did not advise him that social-distancing guidelines had been followed, despite him repeatedly making the claim in the Commons, with Martin Reynolds, the PM’s own private secretary, warning him against making such a claim on the basis it was “unrealistic”. This they view as evidence Johnson deliberately misled Parliament.
It will also find that Johnson misled the committee during a public hearing in March when he claimed that leaving drinks he attended without social distancing were in line with Covid guidance.
“The committee is understood to, er, take a rather dim view of all this,” said The Spectator’s Steerpike, “and the notion that such shindigs were essential to the operation of Downing Street”.
What next?
Technically, said Sky News, “the only powers the committee has is to issue a report for the Commons for MPs to consider”. Although the committee can rule on whether there has been a contempt of parliament, it cannot rule on whether Johnson has broken the ministerial code, which states that intentionally misleading parliament is a resigning offence as this code is overseen by the prime minister.
The Times believes the committee will state that Johnson should have been sanctioned with a suspension of more than 10 days, enough to trigger a by-election, “not that it will make much real difference now Johnson has quit the Commons for life on the after-dinner circuit”, said Steerpike.
Yes, the former PM may have quit “attempting to shape his own narrative about the circumstances of his departure rather than allow the Privileges Committee process to play out as intended”, said the Institute for Government. But the preemptive resignation “cannot diminish the significance of the committee’s findings”.
While it is true a government with a majority can almost always get its way in the House of Commons, argued the think tank, “the existence and powers of the Privileges Committee represent a crucial bulwark against any individual who seeks to prevent the legislature fulfilling its constitutional role”.
It may not end with Johnson. A “source close to the committee” suggested his allies who derided the members could be in contempt of Parliament and open to suspension themselves, The Telegraph reported.
