Had Boris Johnson not resigned, he would have been susceptible to a potential 90-day suspension from the House of Commons. This decision was reached by the Privileges Committee, which determined that he intentionally misled Members of Parliament regarding the partygate scandal.
This morning, the committee finally released its long-awaited report, stating the following: “We conclude that when he [Mr Johnson] told the House and this Committee that the Rules and Guidance were being complied with, his own knowledge was such that he deliberately misled the House and this Committee.”
The committee announced that had the former prime minister not resigned as a Tory MP last Friday, they would have recommended a 90-day suspension.
It said that “if he had not resigned his seat, we would have recommended that he be suspended from the service of the House for 90 days for repeated contempt’s and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process”.
Mr. Johnson denounced the report as a “charade” and expressed his view that its publication marked a “dreadful day for MPs and for democracy.” In a statement comprising 1,700 words, the former prime minister alleged that the report was crafted with the intention of being the “final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination.”
The Privileges Committee stated there was “no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House”.
It said in its report: “The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the Prime Minister, the most senior member of the government.
“There is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House. He misled the House on an issue of the greatest importance to the House and to the public, and did so repeatedly.”