The prime minister’s horizon is clouded after a rebellion by the conservative group on “fundamental principles”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing a long period of dispute over his mandate, after the House of Commons approved a Labor motion on Thursday night for the Privileges Committee to investigate whether he lied in denying that parties were held in his Downing Street residence, which broke the confinement laws.
On Tuesday of last week, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that they had fined Johnson and his Chancellor of the Exchequer for attending a party on the occasion of the British leader’s 58th birthday, on May 19, 2020, which was attended by around thirty guests. The prime minister confirmed that he has paid the fine and repeatedly apologized in Parliament after the news was published.
Police will not release new sanctions before the May 5 municipal elections, but are investigating other parties that have been documented by a so-called ‘partygate’ report by a senior official, Sue Gray. In this context, the Labor Party managed on Thursday to expose the lack of confidence in its leader of the conservative parliamentary group.
The main opposition party has tabled a motion for the parliamentary committee that oversees the conduct of deputies in the chamber to launch its own investigation. Although the proposal specified that the committee will begin its interrogations and the request for evidence when the Police and Gray complete their investigations, the Government presented an amendment to postpone everything to that date.
Those responsible for the discipline of the parliamentary group discovered that some deputies did not answer their messages, that others told them that they would not vote in favor of the amendment or would support the Labor motion. Added to those who requested permission not to attend the vote, they came to the conclusion that the Government would be defeated. The amendment was withdrawn and the motion carried.
Character
A prominent ‘Brexiter’, Steve Baker, gave in his speech the headline of the media: “The game is over”. Baker, who is a Christian, stressed that he was willing to forgive the prime minister – in whose rise to the top of government he played a major role – when he showed contrition in the House. But, in a subsequent and private meeting with his deputies, everything was “an orgy of flattery and grandiloquence.”
Baker discovered with disgust Johnson’s duplicity on “fundamental principles.” “The principle that MPs do not lie to Parliament is fundamental to the British political system”, also for the editorialists of the newspaper ‘The Times’. The population agrees. 76% believe they lied about Downing Street parties and 66% don’t think they regret breaking the rules.
Johnson is the first head of government to be fined for breaking the law and to be investigated for “contempt” of Parliament. The obituary of David Gardner in the ‘Financial Times’, the newspaper for which he was a great correspondent, recounted on Thursday that, when he worked in Brussels, his colleague Johnson copied entire paragraphs from his chronicles, a crime against copyright law author who justified with jokes.
The polls give Labor an advantage in voting intentions since December and say that 56% of the population believes that it is acceptable to change the prime minister during a war. And it may also seem fitting when his tenure will lead British politics in the coming months to a recurring discussion of stupid crimes that raise big principles.
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