At a time when people have far more important things to be worrying about, this week finally saw the end of the drawn-out Privileges report into Boris Johnson.
It will surprise nobody that I have been fairly vocal on this issue and what I believe has been the systematic vilification of Boris from many quarters. This is generally due certain elements having a personal dislike of him, whether that’s because of the Brexit referendum, the huge majority won in 2019 or the fact he doesn’t do things the way the establishment want him to. They can’t beat him at an election, so they have used this instead.
Boris has always been very well received in Bassetlaw and recently he paid us a visit to catch up on the progress of the £17.6million investment in our hospital.
I would not have allowed the investigation to go ahead in the first place as I believe the whole thing to be nonsense. It is made even worse by the fact that Boris has not only stood down as Prime Minister, but also now as a Member of Parliament too. So I ask this question – what else do these people want?
In my opinion, and that of many others, there are many flaws to both the process and the conclusions reached, be that prejudicial comments made in advance, some of the so-called evidence that has been relied upon and what I believe are some quite spiteful and vindictive sanctions. This includes a 90-day suspension from the Commons (now pointless of course) and the removal of his parliamentary pass, which is unprecedented for a former Prime Minister and I believe simply quite nasty and unnecessary. Backbenchers such as myself have even been threatened not to criticise the report or we will be sanctioned – a disgraceful attack on MPs and freedom of speech.
It is for this reason that I stated I would not support the report and would vote down its recommendations. But this vote was something we call a ‘House matter’, meaning it is not whipped and you are given a free vote. It is not normally done on party lines. With no other meaningful business that day, we were on a ‘one-line whip’, meaning we did not need to be on the estate. The Opposition meanwhile appear to have been encouraged to all come in to vote for it. This meant a farcical situation where the numbers would be skewed and the Commons would be half empty.
It is for this reason that those, like me, who were against the report decided that we would therefore boycott the entire thing instead. We would not want to legitimise an unfair report and a compromised vote.
I stated that people would be better watching the Ashes than what is going on in the Commons, which has been misinterpreted by those who cannot read or deliberately twist words to presume that I was actually at the cricket – no such luck afraid!
Incidentally I had a better offer and listened to Boris speak, coincidentally also on his birthday, at the International Democrat Union, where I also met former Canada PM Stephen Harper and where former Australian PM Scott Morrison was also present.
Now let’s move on from this nonsense and focus on what’s really important to people.
