Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” Those are the words of Winston Churchill, first said in this House decades ago, and they hang over us today. Boris Johnson in particular and his supporters should heed the words of his hero. Mr Johnson undermined and attacked our democratic institutions—a far cry from a Prime Minister this country can be proud of. He lied to this House and to the people of this country and, when exposed, lashed out at the system designed to hold him and all of us here to account.

The backdrop to the report is the thousands of red hearts on the covid memorial wall just over the river. Every single one represents a life lost to this awful disease. For every single heart there is a human being loved, mourned and missed. For each, there is a story around them of awful loss—grief compounded by goodbyes done over smartphones, lives ended alone, people robbed of precious time together, and relatives unable to comfort each other at funerals. I urge Members who continue to defend Mr Johnson and attack the Committee and its findings to think of those families and what it means to them. They are our constituents. Defending Mr Johnson’s consistent insistence that thank yous, birthdays and morale-boosting parties were essential work events hurts them.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way; she is making a strong case. Does she agree that Members who seem to think that abstention is an appropriate response to this debate are wholly wrong and that this debate goes to the very heart of the democratic principles on which our democracy is founded? Those who are abstaining are guilty not just of cowardice, but complicity with the very contempt for which Boris Johnson has been found responsible.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. Of course, this is a House matter. It is therefore not whipped. Like the Leader of the House of Commons, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), I will be voting to approve and endorse the report and its recommendations, and I urge others to do the same.

By failing to admit that such events were against the rules and that he should have admitted that as early as possible, Mr Johnson is dishonouring our constituents’ sacrifice—sacrifices they made in the correct belief that they were doing so to protect others; losses that can never be recovered. Birthdays happen every year—it is Johnson’s today. Weddings can be postponed. Plenty were and I know it was hard, but it was possible. But funerals cannot. So I ask each and every MP to look into their hearts and before they risk dishonouring their constituents’ sacrifice, to ask themselves this: if a relative of a victim of covid from their constituency were in the room right now, what would they say? Colleagues across the House are decent people who want to do the right thing and I urge them not to follow Johnson’s example.

Mr Johnson claims the public do not care and that we should all simply move on. Believe me, I did not want to spend my weekend reading 30,000 words on the former Prime Minister. But to tackle soaring mortgage rates, rising crime, NHS waiting lists or any issue that the people we represent rightly want to see addressed, MPs and the public must be able to trust what Ministers say in the House of Commons. Telling the truth is the foundation of a functioning Parliament, the basis on which we hold Ministers to account. It is how we scrutinise new laws and it is how we do our jobs properly. Our democracy depends on it.

It is worth reminding Members today, before they vote, that the public do care about Ministers lying to Parliament. I cannot quite believe that some need reminding of that, but clearly they do. The Constitution Unit at University College London recently found that public anger over dishonesty in politics runs deep. People watching this debate today support the work of the Privileges Committee and rightly so. We all owe the Committee a debt of gratitude. Our constituents want us to step up and enforce the rules when MPs, including Ministers, break them. Being honest came top on a list of characteristics the public told UCL were most desirable for politicians to have. The health of democracy ranked high on issues that matter. They want a Prime Minister who acts honourably, who tells the truth.

The public can take some reassurance from this sorry saga, in that when a Prime Minister fails to act honourably and fails to tell the truth, we have a system here in Parliament to hold them to account. Far from the unfounded claims of a “kangaroo court” that I have heard from some, the Committee members detailed their process and took every possible step to ensure fairness. They, their Clerks and other staff deserve our thanks.

As the Leader of the House explained so admirably, the House voted unanimously to establish the inquiry. The Committee took legal advice from the right hon. Sir Ernest Ryder, former Senior President of Tribunals and Lord Justice of Appeal, from Speaker’s Counsel and from the Clerks of the House, consulting on how to

“apply the general principles of fairness, the rules of the House, and…procedural precedents”.

In the interests of transparency, the Committee published a report last summer setting out its intended processes. It made “further public comments” on its workings “when appropriate.” It gave Johnson further time to respond to the evidence and make his own submissions—and yet, since the start of the inquiry, there has been a sustained, seemingly co-ordinated attempt to undermine its credibility, and the credibility of its individual members. At no point, as far as I can see, did Johnson denounce this campaign. When asked, he said that he had “respect” for the Committee, and that

“he deprecated terms such as ‘witch hunt’ and ‘kangaroo court’”,

but, as we have now found out, he kept those terms in his back pocket all along to use as soon as things did not go his way.

Let us look at what the Committee found. It analysed six events that took place in Downing Street between 2020 and 2021, which it refers to as “gatherings”. Using the evidence available, it was able to establish: what the covid rules and guidance were at the time of each occasion; Mr Johnson’s knowledge of those rules and guidance; his attendance at or knowledge of events which breached rules or guidance; what he had been told by others, and what assurances he had been given about compliance; and, finally, what he had told the House.

That last point is obviously a matter of parliamentary record. We know from Hansard that Mr Johnson spoke in the House of Commons about covid compliance in No. 10 many times, and the Committee established that it was, in fact, more than 30 times. The examples that stand out include those that occurred during Prime Minister’s Question Time, starting with a question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) on 1 December 2021. I commend her, and many other colleagues who did their jobs as scrutinisers. Speaking then and to the Committee, Johnson asserted that the rules and guidance were followed “completely”, “at all times”, and while he was present at gatherings.

Having established all that, the Committee then measured what Johnson had said against the actual facts of what had happened and what he had either known or should reasonably have known, at the time and subsequently, and found that it was not correct. The term that he had used, “imperfect social distancing”, could not be found in the guidance. He had put forward an

“unsustainable interpretation of the Guidance”

which was

“both disingenuous and a retrospective contrivance to mislead the House”.

In other words, Boris Johnson lied. This was a new low in his disregard for standards in public life.

I suggest that hon. Members across the House should ask themselves simply, “Does this pass the common sense test?” After he has lied his way through his career, and given the meticulous way in which the Committee has approached this whole inquiry and its carefully considered report, do they still trust Johnson? They should think back to 2020. In the first wave of covid, we had no vaccine, no mass testing, and no cure. People were afraid. People were dying. Would any one of us have considered that an event with an invitation list of 200, with wine, to boost staff morale or to say thank you for hard work, was essential for work purposes? Yet, even now, the former Prime Minister continues to say that it was.

Every single one of us will have constituency examples of heartbreaking cases in which people did not meet in person when they desperately wanted to do so. Doctors, nurses, care workers, teachers and bus drivers would not have dreamt of asking the then Prime Minister if they could get together for a “bring your own bottle party” with a “plus one”. They would never have brought their interior designer either. They knew the true meaning of sacrifice. They did not need to ask; they listened to him, night after night, telling us and reminding us what the guidance and the rules were. He was, as the Committee said, the “most prominent public promoter” of those rules. So it is simply not credible for Johnson to claim repeatedly that they were complied with, when the evidence is so damningly clear that they were not and that he must have known, because he was the one announcing them. This is not just the reasonable person test; it is the “Who on earth do you think you are kidding?” test. And he fails both.

The final area I want to cover is the current Prime Minister’s reaction to the report and where it leaves standards in Parliament and public life more generally. It is painfully clear that the Prime Minister is not strong enough to turn the page on his predecessor. When stories or scandals like this one cut through with the public, it offers the Prime Minister the chance to press the reset button, show leadership, get to grips with an issue and tackle it head on, but this Prime Minister is simply too weak to do so. Despite promising integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level, he has shown that he is too weak to stand up to Boris Johnson and his sycophants, which is profoundly dangerous, because if we cannot have a Prime Minister that stands up for standards, what have we got?

All we have heard so far are mealy-mouthed statements. It was on the Prime Minister to come to the House and set an example to his MPs. Instead, I hear that he has proactively said that he does not want to influence anyone on this. How is that integrity at every level? If the Prime Minister cannot even show leadership when it comes to holding liars to account, how can he expect the people of this country to trust him on anything? Is he at least planning to say something of note after the vote, or is his judgment so poor that he is sitting this one out completely? He is the Prime Minister; we should know where he stands.

I ask the Leader of the House: has the Prime Minister at least read the report? Does he personally endorse the Committee’s conclusions? Does he back the sanctions in full? The Leader of the Opposition has done just that; why cannot the Prime Minister?

As I said, the Government have form. I was shadow Leader of the House two years ago when Boris Johnson and the then Leader of the House tried to rip up the rules to save their friend, Owen Paterson. Hundreds of Tory MPs voted with them and, I am afraid to say, that included the current Leader of the House. The current Prime Minister was missing then, too. This has all the hallmarks of Paterson 2.0. This time, MPs have been actively encouraged to dodge the vote. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will prove me wrong, because a real leader would not abdicate responsibility. A real leader would encourage Members to rise to the moment. I welcome the motion in the name of the Leader of the House, but I ask: who on the Government side actually supports it? The Government Front-Bench team, from the media over the weekend, otherwise seem to be in chaos. Where are they?

Just yesterday, the Levelling Up Secretary said that he disagrees with the Committee’s conclusions. Does the Leader of the House know how many of her other Cabinet colleagues are not supporting her motion? Perhaps the easiest way to work it out is to think about which Cabinet Minister fancies their chances when it comes to the next Tory leadership election. That seems to be what we have been reduced to: Cabinet Ministers jostling for position with the membership. This is no way to run a country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), and particularly the powerful poem she just quoted.

I rise to express my sincere gratitude to the Privileges Committee, particularly the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and all the staff and Clerks who supported its vital work, which is of profound democratic importance to this country.

I speak today with a feeling of overwhelming relief that, at last, the truth is being told in this House and the collective gaslighting of a nation is finally over. In a way, it is shocking that a parliamentary Committee has had to spell out:

“If Ministers cannot be trusted to tell the truth, the House cannot do its job”.

Even more shocking is that, on this occasion, the Minister in question was the most senior person in Government, the Prime Minister—a Prime Minister who sought to obscure the truth from those to whom he was accountable by lying deliberately and repeatedly, and who, by lying to Parliament, was also lying to the people who elect it; and a Prime Minister who has effectively shredded the ministerial code, which is, in the words of the constitutional historian Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield,

“a crucial part of the spinal cord of the constitution”.

Boris Johnson announced on the day the report was published:

“This is a dreadful day for MPs and for democracy.”

In fact, the reverse is true. It was a day that saw British parliamentary democracy vindicated against an unprecedented attack. But let us be very clear that our democracy is fragile and that there was nothing inevitable about this particular outcome.

The report shows that our “good chap” conventions of government allowed a rogue Prime Minister to run amok for far too long. It offers some hope because it also shows that, if an MP or, indeed, a Prime Minister deliberately lies and undermines the processes of this House, they can be held to account. But I say “can be”, not “will be”, advisedly, because this inquiry had to be fought for. There was nothing guaranteed about it, because our standards systems are still not fit for purpose.

It is both negligent and dangerous to assume democracy is inevitable, perpetual and unshakeable. It is not. It is breakable and contingent. We have to actively and vigilantly defend it, which is why standing together as a Parliament in support of the Privileges Committee’s report is so essential, and why it goes beyond just the rogue activities of one particular Member of Parliament.

We also need to strengthen the mechanisms we have to hold Government to account because there remain serious instances of former Ministers misleading this House that have gone uncorrected and unchallenged. We need new mechanisms to call any Minister, including a Prime Minister, to account if they deliberately mislead the House—a view shared prior to partygate, in 2021, by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by Lord Evans. It is shocking that the role of the so-called independent adviser on the ministerial code is, essentially, false advertising, and will continue to be so until that person is appointed by an independent panel, is able to initiate their own investigations and has the authority to determine breaches of the code. Those basic, yet fundamental changes would allow Back Benchers to raise concerns and evidence with the adviser, who could then act as they, and not just the Prime Minister, saw fit.

The current Prime Minister could have made those changes, but he has chosen not to. Nor has he appointed an anti-corruption champion after the position has been left vacant for more than a year. Our systems need to be strengthened so that, if a Minister misleads the House deliberately, or if they do it inadvertently but do not correct at the earliest opportunity, a formal process to hold them to account should be an inevitability. This inquiry only came about in April 2022 because of the spiralling unease and rebellion of some Members on Boris Johnson’s Back Benches, which meant he could not whip his MPs to prevent it. Over a year before that, in April 2021, I joined a wide cross-party group of MPs to call for an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s repeated lies to the House on other matters, and it did not happen. So it was somewhat ironic to learn, via a subject access request, how that call has been labelled as “misinformation” or indeed “disinformation” by one of the Government units supposed to be acting as an arbiter of accuracy and honesty.

Hon. Members of all parties must stand by this Committee and demonstrate that rules matter, that Parliament is more important than party and that standards in public life must be upheld. Conservative Members, in particular, must face down the Trumpian intimidation orchestrated by a small band of, frankly, anti-democratic Johnson supporters. Those Members need to be very clear that abstention is not just cowardice—it is complicity in the former Prime Minister’s contempt of Parliament.

The current Prime Minister ought to be here. He ought to be leading by example. Instead, he has chosen to be silent and is conspicuous by his absence tonight. Nor has he even ruled out the idea that Mr Johnson could be permitted to stand as a Conservative parliamentary candidate some time in the future. If there were any shred of seriousness in the Prime Minister’s pledge to restore accountability and integrity to public life, he should unambiguously endorse the Privileges Committee report tonight and urge his fellow party Members to do the same.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, with the Prime Minister not attending and failing to vote, he is endorsing the conduct? Is not it time that we depart from this principle of dishonesty, which was baked into the offer made by Boris Johnson originally? That is what got us into this mess in the first place; it was deemed to be acceptable in return for electoral advantage.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and agree entirely with the points he makes. By not speaking out tonight, the Prime Minister is guilty of collusion, effectively. He has not stood up for the key principles at stake and he has not done his duty tonight.

To conclude, this Committee report is a vital part of the fightback against post-truth politics. Truth is not a technicality. As the report states, our democracy depends on it. So what is at stake here are our most profound democratic principles and the very concept of decency in public life: leading by example versus hypocrisy; truth versus lies; and respect versus contempt. There can be no failing to turn up or sitting on the sidelines. The choice is either being prepared to stand up and defend democracy, or being prepared to turn a blind eye to it being under attack. This is much bigger than one rogue Prime Minister. All of us will be rightly judged tonight on what we choose to do.