Senior Conservative warns Rishi Sunak not to abstain in Privileges Committee vote
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A senior Conservative MP said if Rishi Sunak did not take part in Monday’s vote on Boris Johnson’s Privileges Committee report, he would not be “getting the importance of the occasion”.
MPs will be given a free vote on the report, but allies of Mr Johnson have warned of consequences, including de-selecting, for those Conservatives who back the move.
Damian Green, former first secretary of state and de facto deputy prime minister under Theresa May, said he “intends to vote for the committee’s report” and told fellow Conservative MPs not to “run away” from the committee’s findings.
Asked if he thought it was important for Mr Sunak to vote for the report, Mr Green told the BBC: “Personally, I think it is such an important act that a deliberate abstention is not very important.
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“Obviously it’s very, very unusual, if not unique, to have a report like this on a former prime minister, and I will be voting for him with a heavy heart, with sadness… I don’t want to do it, but it seems to me the report is very clear and Parliament must respect its own procedures.’
Downing Street did not confirm yesterday whether Mr Sunak would be in the Commons for the vote.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading aide to Boris Johnson, predicted the Prime Minister would abstain during Monday’s vote on the Privileges Committee report.
Asked during an LBC interview how Mr Sunak should vote, Mr Rhys-Mogg said: “Rishi Sunak will abstain on the basis that it is a matter of Parliament.”
Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said Mr Sunak’s potential absence from a vote on the committee’s findings on Monday “revealed his weakness”.
“If he doesn’t join parliament and hold former prime minister Boris Johnson to account, it will be a serious failure,” he added.
The Privileges Committee ruled in a sensational verdict yesterday that, had Mr Johnson not resigned as an MP, the panel would have recommended a 90-day suspension as a sanction for deliberately misleading the House of Representatives. The committee also recommended that Mr. Johnson be denied access to the House of Commons.
Mr Johnson called the finding “crazy”, “a lie” and “the latest stab in a long political murder”.
Ahead of Monday’s vote, the former prime minister’s allies continue to step up their attacks on a report that found the former prime minister lied to parliament on several occasions.
Sir Jake Berry, the former leader of the Conservative Party and an ally of the former prime minister, this morning described the privilege committee’s report as an “absolute disgrace”, accusing the cross-party group of seeking to “silence MPs”.
Sir Jake told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “For the first time in my parliamentary career I am afraid to speak about a report or the findings of a parliamentary committee because they have threatened MPs that if they do, they themselves will be subject to certain sanctions.
“This is an attack on freedom of speech. It is an absolute disgrace and it rather begs the question that if the committee is so confident and so satisfied with their findings, why are they trying to stop any debate on this, to silence MPs and prevent them from talking about it.’
He said he was “almost certain that Parliament would vote in favor” of the report on Monday, but that he would certainly be one of those in the lobby not to oppose the report because I think both the findings and, in some degree, the way the committee was set up in terms of this report is wrong.”
Mr Johnson’s main ally in Nadine Dorries also said any Tory MP who voted for the report was “fundamentally not a Conservative”.
Meanwhile, David TC Davies, the Welsh minister, said he “really doesn’t see a way back for Boris”.
Asked on BBC Question Time last night whether he believed the former prime minister’s political career was “finally dead and buried”, Mr Davis said: “I think it probably is.
“I’m not saying it’s good or bad. But I don’t really see a way back for Boris. He has just left parliament, he has resigned, he has decided to do so and that is fine – any MP who has had enough can resign if he wants to,” he added.
The Liberal Democrat leader said Mr Johnson “deserves further punishment” for lying to MPs.
Sir Ed Davey said Sky News: “I think now we expect the Prime Minister to show some leadership. Rishi Sunak was quite weak in this matter. He bowed down to his backbenchers and the people in the Conservative Party who still won’t face the facts about Boris Johnson and that’s why Rishi Sunak has to cancel this lifetime grant.
“Boris Johnson will receive £115,000 a year for the rest of his life for organizing his offices. I mean, I just don’t think it goes anywhere near this report. He certainly deserves further punishment.”
