Senior Conservative MPs are urging colleagues to approve the privileges committee’s report on Boris Johnson in the Commons on Monday as jittery Conservatives consider skipping an expected vote.
In a 108-page report released on Thursday, the committee condemned the former prime minister for contempt of parliament, including lying to MPs about the Covid-19 party scandal.
If Johnson has not resigned as an MP, he will be recommended a 90-day suspension from the House of Commons, the report said. Instead, it suggested preventing him from getting a pass to the House of Commons, which normally extends to all former MPs.
The report will be debated in parliament on Monday and is expected to be put to a vote.
A group of Johnson’s allies, including Sir Jack Berry, Sir Simon Clarke and Brendan Clarke-Smith, have announced their intention to vote against the report, although they admit they do not have enough numbers to win.
Some supporters have warned colleagues backing the report that they could face a struggle with local parties to remain candidates in the general election. Nadine Dorries said, “Any Conservative MP who supports this report has no respect for democracy and must face the prospect of being disqualified”.
Fearful of upsetting local MPs who back Johnson after such threats, some Tories privately admitted they planned to sit out of parliament that day to miss the vote.
The Tory whip has ordered that attendance at the Commons on Monday is not compulsory, giving MPs the option to miss it. Downing Street has yet to say whether Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will vote.
However, on Friday former cabinet minister Damian Green urged other Conservative MPs to attend, telling the BBC the report was “very clear” and “Parliament should respect its own process”.
“Intentional abstention doesn’t really rise to the importance of the occasion,” Green said, adding that “backbenchers in particular need to be concerned about the future of parliamentary discipline”.
Veteran Conservative MP John Baron, a MP for more than 20 years, also stressed the importance of defending the privileges committee’s investigation of Johnson.
“We must preserve the integrity of the House and Parliament, and if there is a vote, we must support the report.”
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Johnson loyalist, said it was prudent for the government to allow a free vote on the matter, warning that the whipping operation was unlikely to succeed given the strong feelings among the former prime minister’s supporters.
The grassroots party members who support him are urged to lobby Conservative MPs before the vote and make clear their concerns about Johnson’s treatment.
David Campbell Bannerman, chairman of the Conservative Democrats group, a group started by Johnson’s allies after he left Downing Street, said it had received a flood of calls from activists angry at the privilege commission’s report Information.
The former Conservative MEP said large numbers of party members were “fearful of what they call a stitch, what I call a coup”. In a warning to the Conservatives in the House of Commons, he said the CDO was advising members on the process of deselecting local MPs.
With the split in the party laid bare, Sunak faces another blow after Telford MP Lucy Allen announced she would stand down at the next election.
“Today’s Tories are not interested in seats like Telford anymore,” she said of the Shropshire town where Johnson delivered his 2019 manifesto.