Long-awaited privileges committee report will set our whether the former prime minister lied to MPs
The Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Commons defence committee, has criticised Boris Johnsonn for the way he attacked Sir Bernard Jenkin, a Conservative member of the privileges committee, last night. Ellwood said that if Johnson had complaints about the process, he should have stayed on as an MP, and made a statement in the chamber, instead of resigning.
Ellwood told Sky News:
If Boris Johnson is unhappy with the committee’s findings, or indeed anybody on the committee, the personalities and so forth, he could easily have made a personal statement in the Commons – that’s the process – and presented his arguments prior to a full vote from the House, because it will be for the House to determine whether they support this publication or not.
He’s chosen to abandon all those possible avenues of approach and quit parliament in its entirety.
Johnson’s confidence stemmed from the huge support he received from the party base. He was loved by members across the country but this is changing before our very eyes. There’s now disappointment, even anger that the party, the activists are left to pick up the pieces …
The longer this public pantomime drags on, the more Boris loses support from a once very loyal base … the more the prime minister’s plans and vision which was starting to gain traction are overshadowed, the public actually want us to get back to politics.
You are talking about a report that I haven’t seen and that no one else has seen. It wouldn’t be right to comment on it in advance of it coming out and being published.
These are matters for the House of Commons, and Parliament will deal with it in the normal way that it does.
