The privileges committee’s special report on “sustained interference” into the partygate probe names seven MPs and one peer, accusing them of “improper pressure”.
Nadine Dorries is named four times and Mark Jenkinson, Michael Fabricant, Brendan Clarke-Smith, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrea Jenkyns, Priti Patel and Zac Goldsmith are all also cited in the report for criticising the investigation.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson sensationally quit his Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat after the privileges committee found he had deliberately misled the House with his partygate denials.
In the run-up to the report, allies of the ex-PM had labelled the committee a “kangaroo court”, criticised the members, and accused them of bias – in particular, the Labour chair of the committee Harriet Harman.
In its findings, the committee wrote that they were “concerned” that should those “behaviours go unchallenged”, such an inquiry would be “impossible” in future.
They said they would be preparing a “special report” on those behaviours, writing: “The House must have a committee to defend its rights and privileges, and it must protect members of the House doing that duty from formal or informal attack or undermining designed to deter and prevent them from doing that duty.”
