Suspending Boris Johnson’s allies for attacking the inquiry sets an unhappy precedent which is not in the long-term interests of the political constitution.
They were: Bill Cash, Nick Fletcher, Adam Holloway, Karl McCartney, Joy Morrissey, and Heather Wheeler.
The committee’s report was thorough, but the sentence is disproportionate.
We see the pendulum swinging towards stricter morality and rules, upheld by the dull, the prudent and the reputable.
It indicates that his conduct since stepping down as an MP is why the sanction is so severe – but doesn’t tell us, beyond being sufficient to trigger a recall, what the original would have been.
They recommend a 90-day suspension and that he be refused the parliamentary pass customarily afforded to former MPs.
Party activists could be forgiven for wondering if he would now rather have Starmer in Downing Street than Sunak.
“He’s quitting as much on his own terms as he can, given the essentially zero political wriggle-room he had left.”
The evidence from the local elections is not that the voters are abandoning the Tories to back Reform or Ukip , but parties of the centre and the left. Their situation is bad, but it can be made worse.
But end by repeating that it is unfair for constituents in any seat, whatever the circumstances may be, to have a by-election forced on them by as few as one in ten of their number.
Rising above tribal instinct to deliver equality under the law is the foundation of civilisation. It is a habit hard to learn, and easy to forget.
There should be a high bar to exposing anyone to a flawed recall procedure yoked by happenstance to a legitimate Parliamentary enquiry.
The former Prime Minister offered a professional defence of the unwise assurances he gave to the Commons in December 2021.
“The respect I have for this institution of Parliament… that’s why I have come here,” replies former Prime Minister
Many of Tory MPs will be sick and tired of the self-reverential obsequies attached to the Committee’s deliberation and verdict – and of the hysteria, hate, vitriol and venom directed at a man without whom many would never have had the opportunity to serve in Parliament.