The vote to accept and approve the “House of Commons Committee of Privileges: Matter referred on 21 April 2022 (conduct of Rt Hon Boris Johnson): Final Report”, takes place on Monday. 

The report is forensic and worth a read.

It will be a free vote and already there is much press speculation on how many Tories will find it politic to be absent. 

Supporters of Boris Johnson have vowed to target Conservative members of the privileges committee and Tory MPs who endorse its findings for deselection. They are likely to be very vociferous over the weekend.

For example, Boris Johnson describes the findings as follows:

“The committee now says that I deliberately misled the House, and at the moment I spoke I was consciously concealing from the House my knowledge of illicit events.

This is rubbish. It is a lie. In order to reach this deranged conclusion, the Committee is obliged to say a series of things that are patently absurd, or contradicted by the facts.”

Though a small proportion of the electorate, the influence of Party Members is disproportionate to their number.

It was the membership who chose both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. So any Conservative voting to approve the report risks upsetting diehard party members, maybe face deselection.

Not voting will send a strong signal to the electorate at large that such an MP is not prepared to “move on”.

Simon Jupp has been a PPS under both Boris and Truss. We wait to see which way he jumps.  

The BBC even  speculates on whether Rishi Sunak will attend. 

That’s the Prime Minister who promised that his government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.