On the day the UK House of Commons debated whether Boris Johnson was a liar and fraud, Labor leader Keir Starmer presented a climate and energy plan and Scottish Prime Minister Hamza Yusuf with a plan for Scottish independence. So there was more substantial news that day, but the highest political game took place in Westminster.
With 354 in favor and seven against, the verdict on Boris Johnson on Monday was clear: as prime minister he lied to parliament several times about the “gate party”. So Parliament overwhelmingly backed an investigative report during the vote which found parties at 10 Downing Street during lockdown were not being told the truth. Of those who voted for him, 118 were from his own party.
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Former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson could have been suspended for 90 days but that is now a paper procedure as he had already fled to the front a week and a half ago and left as an MP. Most painful for him was that he also had to hand over the lane by which the former Parliamentarians could move freely through Westminster. This is unprecedented for a former prime minister. If he ever wanted to meet a politician, he had to report to the main entrance and queue at the security check like an ordinary citizen.
So Johnson received only minimal support, from seven Conservative members. But this is a distorted picture. Some of his allies abstained from the vote, though they participated in the debate. Chief among them was Jacob Rees-Mogg, of the right-wing Conservative Party. He found the report biased and the evidence of lying unconvincing. Rees-Mogg said the inquiry, led by Labor MP Harriet Harman, had tried to describe what Johnson was “thinking at one point” as if they had “an Elon Musk particle in his brain”.
Last week’s Harman Commission report harshly judged the behavior of Johnson, who was the UK’s prime minister between July 2019 and September 2022. He had long insisted before Parliament that everyone in the official residence followed the rules, even though he knew that was not the case. “This research touches the heart of our democracy,” the researchers wrote. In Monday night’s debate, several members of the House of Commons said this report was of great public interest because Parliament should never accept that a member of the Cabinet is not telling the truth. They hoped that a line could now be drawn under Johnson. For example, Jess Phillips of the Labor Party said that this case shows that democracy is “bigger than this demagogue, this guy who thinks he’s bigger than the world”. “He resisted the system.”
No dirty hands
In the debate on Monday night, the question was often raised of where Rishi Sunak really was. The Prime Minister was not present at the debate and therefore did not vote. His spokesperson said he had other things to do. He also did not want to influence the debate and “allow everyone to express their opinion freely without affecting this decision,” according to Downing Street. But most commentators concluded that Sunak did not want to get his hands dirty on the matter nor did he want to take sides with or against Boris Johnson, and therefore not with or against his allies. Because although Johnson received little support in Parliament, he was still popular in Conservative circles. according to YouGov pollwhich was published on Monday morning, Conservative voters in 2019 love him more than Sunak.
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Several opposition party members criticized Sunak for her lack of presence. When he took office in October, he had promised to govern “with integrity, responsibility, and professionalism.” He could have shown it now, but the opposition accused him of being “too weak to stand up to Johnson and his allies openly”.
The chance that Boris Johnson will face Sunak again and try to make a comeback has not increased after the clear ruling from Parliament. But with Johnson you never know. It is not excluded that he will return one day with his party. For the time being, without a pass, he wouldn’t be seen very often in Westminster.
