Why Boris Johnson's political career is over

 Source - Daily Telegraph - 21/07/22

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Afternoon!

Hasta la vista baby! Or not. Boris Johnson’s plans to stage a political comeback are in real trouble after the latest report from MPs investigating whether he lied to Parliament over partygate.

The MPs are looking at Johnson’s statements to the Commons between December 2021 and May this year when the official inquiry by civil servant Sue Gray was published.

At first, the PM said there was not a party in 10 Downing Street, then he insisted that when he said all rules were followed “it was what I believed to be true” earlier this year in the Commons.

As I pointed out in my newsletter on June 30 it had been widely assumed that MPs would have to prove he had “deliberately misled” the House of Commons over the extent of parties in Downing Street during the lockdowns.

However, the MPs make clear today that this bar has been lowered simply to whether Johnson misled the Commons, following the Labour motion passing unopposed on April 21 when the PM was in India which only made reference to “misleading”.

This is a disaster for Johnson as he has already corrected the record. This means that the MPs only need to prove he misled the House, not whether he thought he was doing so at the time.

The MPs say they have been advised by the Clerk of the Journals that: “Intention is not necessary for a contempt to be committed.”

They add: “The Clerk’s memo explains that while ‘much of the commentary has focussed on whether Mr Johnson ‘deliberately’ or ‘knowingly’ misled the Committee’, ‘this wording is not in the motion’.”

This is nothing less than re-writing parliamentary rules that go back decades defining what misleading the House means.

As I warned on June 30, the decision by the Government’s Whips’ Office not to amend the motion or order Tories to vote against it on April 21 is now clear for all to see.

That decision has the potential to wreck Johnson’s political career post-Downing Street once and for all.

For me, it is now highly likely that Johnson will be suspended from the Commons when it finishes its deliberations in the autumn.

And it gets worse for Johnson. The MPs also say that the Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle has taken legal advice on what length of time will trigger a recall petition.

The Speaker has ruled that “any suspension of the requisite length (ten sitting days or fourteen calendar days) following on from a report from that Committee will attract the provisions of the Recall of MPs Act”.

In other words, if Johnson is banned for 10 sitting days he could face a vote from his constituents on whether he can carry on as an MP if more than 10 per cent of eligible registered voters want one.

Conservative MPs loyal to Johnson are going apoplectic. They cannot understand how a committee with a majority of Tory members can allow this to happen.

One MP said: “It is an attempt to bury Boris Johnson. This is dynamite. This is an impeachment. It is absolutely outrageous.

“This is a carefully planned operation, the object of which would lead to a recall petition to destroy the reputation of the Prime Minister.”

I fear this is curtains for Johnson’s long-term political future. The MPs now look nailed on to find him guilty of misleading the Commons. A ban will surely follow and a possible recall by-election he might struggle to win.

Johnson might want to tease us by saying that “mission largely accomplished - for now” at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday. For me this is wishful thinking: his political career after he quits as PM looks over.

Cheerio!

Chopper