A female Tory MP backed the Commons sleazebuster into a corner and told her to “watch your back”, it was claimed tonight.
Kathryn Stone, who stepped down as the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards earlier this year, said she faced several attempts to intimidate her.
She revealed how she was targeted by Conservative MPs after she investigated Tory former Cabinet minister Owen Paterson.
He was found to have broken lobbying rules while working for two firms that paid him more than £500,000.
Boris Johnson ordered MPs to vote to stop him being punished, before he was forced to U-turn after a furious backlash.
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Ms Stone said: “There had been some incredibly personal attacks on me: my appearance; where I grew up; my education; the way I spoke.
“But also, more fundamentally, attacks of the standards system itself. This was a blatant attack to undermine the system by the people who wrote the rules, didn’t like them, and were ripping up the rule book to start again.”
She added: “I was approached by a female conservative MP who backed me into a corner and said: ;You need to watch yourself; the knives are out for you; you just watch your back’.
“One interpretation is that she was offering friendly supportive advice; the other is that it was an attempt to intimidate me. It didn’t work”.
Ms Stone said at the height of the row over Mr Paterson, journalists were falsely briefed that she would resign.
She said that she told her colleague, “Tell them to f**k off because I am going nowhere.”
The former standards chief also criticised the behaviour of Mr Johnson’s supporters during the current Privileges Committee investigation into whether he lied over Partygate.
She said that she had to watch his grilling by MPs last week “through my figures”, adding: “A number of things struck me, the tone of the former PM and his supporters - ‘it’s not fair’, ‘this is a kangaroo court’, ‘this has been pre-judged’, ‘this is biased’.
“Of course it’s fair. It’s a Parliamentary process being overseen and advised by Sir Ernest Ryder who is a former senior member of the judiciary.”
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