Senior Labour MP Harriet Harman has said the four Conservative MPs who agreed that Boris Johnson had lied over Partygate were “heroic”.
The chair of the cross-party privileges committee investigation praised Tories on the panel for resisting “real harassment” from their party colleagues.
In her first interview since the historic report – which saw Mr Johnson forced out of parliament – Ms Harman said it was “very galling” for the ex-PM’s allies to try to discredit the probe.
“Those four Conservative members of the committee did a heroic service on behalf of the House of Commons because they were absolutely steadfast,” Ms Harman told Iain Dale at an Edinburgh fringe event.
“They were getting rained down with emails and everything with people saying, ‘You are a disgrace, get off the committee. You should not be doing this. This is a witch-hunt’,” she added.
“And they were being so pressurised from their own side that they were like, ‘This is the job that we have agreed to do for the House of Commons. For our democracy. We are going to look at the evidence without fear or favour. And we’re going to carry on doing it’.”
Ms Harman – stepping down at the next general election – defended the committee’s conclusions and the recommended 90-day suspension, arguing that ministers who lie were now “in jeopardy”.
“To have a cross-party committee make a unanimous finding and put it to the house and it be unanimously accepted: that is quite something,” said the MP for Camberwell and Peckham.
“I do think that ministers in future will be more careful about telling the truth. Because it is absolutely clear that there is no impunity,” Ms Harman added.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (l) was among those who challenged the impartiality of Harriet Harman (r)
“The whole thing about misleading the house is not the technicality …. It’s what our democracy is completely based on. So this was a very serious issue being done on behalf of the House.”
Ms Harman was accused by bias by some of Mr Johnson’s fiercest allies. She had been appointed after Chris Bryant recused over tweets critical of Mr Johnson’s behaviour.
A follow-up dossier by the cross-party group found that the ex-Tory leaders supporters had made a series of “disturbing” attacks on the committee launched which undermined democracy.
It found that Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries, Priti Patel, serving minister Zac Goldsmith and others made “unprecedented” and “unacceptable” attempts to damage the work of the cross-party inquiry.
The committee said the MPs should now consider whether the actions of Johnson allies should be considered a contempt of parliament and what further action to take – raising the possibility of suspensions.
