LONDON, 29 Jun: A committee of British lawmakers on Thursday slammed allies of Boris Johnson in Parliament for trying to interfere with their investigation into whether the former prime minister lied about rule-flouting parties in his office during the coronavirus pandemic.
\nThe House of Commons Privileges Committee said senior Conservatives, including past Cabinet ministers under Johnson, \u201ctook it upon themselves to undermine procedures of the House of Commons.\u201d
\nIt said Johnson allies \u2014 including former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries and ex-House of Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg \u2014 mounted \u201cvociferous attacks\u201d on the committee on social media, radio and television. The forums for the attacks included shows hosted by Dorries and Rees-Mogg themselves on a right-wing news channel, the panel said.
\nThey and several other legislators called the ethics probe into Johnson a \u201ckangaroo court,\u201d a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d and a miscarriage of justice \u2013 echoing language used by the embattled former prime minister.
\nThe eight Johnson allies called out in the report include Zac Goldsmith, a member of the House of Lords and a serving Foreign Office minister.
\nThe committee \u2013 which has four Conservative members and three from opposition parties \u2013 said the goal of such statements was \u201cto frustrate the intention of the House that the inquiry should be carried out, or to prevent the inquiry coming to a conclusion which the critics did not want.\u201d
\nEarlier this month the committee issued a scathing report on Johnson\u2019s behavior over the \u201cpartygate\u201d scandal, saying he lied about lockdown-breaching parties and was complicit in a campaign to intimidate those investigating his conduct.
\nThe committee said Johnson\u2019s actions were such a flagrant violation of the rules that they warranted a 90-day suspension from Parliament, though he avoided that ignominy by resigning as a lawmaker after the committee gave him advance notice of its findings. AP<\/p>\n
The committee\u2019s report was endorsed by the House of Commons last week by a vote of 354 to 7.
\nThe committee does not have the power to sanction the lawmakers it accused Thursday of intimidation \u2013 only the Commons as a whole can do that. It recommended that lawmakers pass a motion stating that, \u201cMembers of this House should not impugn the integrity of that Committee or its members or attempt to lobby or intimidate those members or to encourage others to do so.\u201d
\n\u201cIt will be for the House to consider what further action, if any, to take in respect of Members of the House referred to in this special report,\u201d the committee said. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON, 29 Jun: A committee of British lawmakers on Thursday slammed allies of Boris Johnson in Parliament for trying to interfere with their investigation into whether the former prime minister lied about rule-flouting parties in his office during the coronavirus pandemic. The House of Commons Privileges Committee said senior Conservatives, including past Cabinet ministers under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-219430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}