Tag Archives: boris johnson

‘He’s Wrong’: James Cleverly Condemns Boris Johnson Over Ukraine

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James Cleverly has hit back at Boris Johnson after he accused Rishi Sunak of failing to give enough support to Ukraine.

The former prime minister launched an outspoken attack on western governments’ response to the ongoing Russian invasion in an article in The Spectator last week.

Johnson said: “I have asked it before, and I ask it again: what the hell are we waiting for?”

Shown Johnson’s comments by Trevor Phillips on his Sky News show this morning, Cleverly said: “He cannot be talking about the United Kingdom.

“Under his tenure, and I always pay tribute to his leadership on this, we supplied those NLAW anti-tank missile systems that were so instrumental in the defence of Kyiv, we supplied training.

“Under Rishi Sunak as prime minister we were the first in the world to commit main battle tanks, other countries in the world then followed our example.

“We were the first to commit to the training of fast jet pilots, then other countries followed our example.

“We were the first to commit to those long-range missiles that have been instrumental in helping the Ukrainians in their battle in the south and south-east of Ukraine. So we have led the world on all these issues.”

James Cleverly was showed Johnson's comments on Sky News
James Cleverly was showed Johnson’s comments on Sky News

But Phillips replied: “Surely [Boris Johnson] should know about the issue of pace? He was the fastest of western leaders to respond. And he now says that the momentum that he set is essentially being run into the ground by you guys. You’ve got to take this seriously.”

Cleverly said: “Of course I take his comments seriously, but I’ve just given you evidence of the fact that he is wrong on this issue.

“I speak to the Ukrainians very regularly on this. They remain incredibly grateful, not just for our donations but our leadership on this issue.”

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Fresh By-Election Nightmare For Rishi Sunak As Chris Pincher To Resign As MP

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Chris Pincher has said he will resign as an MP, triggering yet another by-election headache for Rishi Sunak.

The move came after he lost his appeal against an eight-week parliamentary suspension for allegedly groping two men.

Pincher, the MP for Tamworth, resigned as Conservative deputy chief whip last June after the allegations first emerged. He was also stripped of the Tory whip.

The scandal ultimately led to Boris Johnson’s resignation as prime minister.

In a statement on Thursday, Pincher said: “I have said already that I will not stand at the next General Election.

“However, following the Independent Expert Panel’s decision I wanted to talk to my office team and family.

“I do not want my constituents to be put to further uncertainty, and so in consequence I have made arrangements to resign and leave the Commons.

“Tamworth is a wonderful place and it has been an honour to represent its people. I shall make no further comment at this time.”

Pincher has been an MP since 2010 and retained his seat at the 2019 election with a majority of 19,634.

However, given their commanding lead in the opinion polls, Labour will will fancy their chances of seizing the seat and delivering yet another blow to the prime minister.

Sunak is already facing an embarrassing by-election defeat in Mid Bedfordshire in October, after Nadine Dorries finally stepped down as an MP.

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‘This Was A Conservative Policy’: BBC Presenter Skewers Minister Over Tory ULEZ Hypocrisy

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A Conservative minister was left squirming after a BBC presenter highlighted the Tories’ hypocrisy over London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).

Transport secretary Mark Harper was skewered by John Kay on the day the controversial scheme is expanded across the whole of the capital.

The decision by Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, has been criticised by the Tories.

But on BBC Breakfast this morning, it was pointed out to Harper that ULEZ was originally the brainchild of Boris Johnson when he had Khan’s job in 2015.

Kay told him: “There are millions of people waking up this morning inside the ULEZ charging zone in London.

“I just want to read you a quote from the mayor of London: ‘The world’s first ULEZ zone is an essential measure to help improve air quality in our city and protect the health of Londoners’.

“That was former mayor of London, Conservative Boris Johnson. This was a Conservative policy originally, however critical you are of it now.”

Harper replied: “No, the expansion of the ULEZ zone to cover the whole of Greater London is a decision by the Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, supported by the Labour leader.

“If you look at the mayor’s own impact assessment, it will have a minor to negligible effect on air quality. So it’s very clear, despite what the mayor says, this isn;t about improving air quality in Greater London, it’s about raising from Londoners for him.”

Kay then went on to point out that expanding ULEZ from central London was backed during the pandemic by Harper’s predecessor as transport secretary, Grant Shapps.

He said: “It wasn’t just Boris Johnson though, was it? Former Conservative transport secretary Grant Shapps, your predecessor in your job, he wanted the congestion charge in London expanded three years ago.”

But Harper hit back: “No he didn’t, this has been put around by the Labour Party. This was about the expansion of the ULEZ to the north and south London circular area, which was something that was a manifesto commitment by the mayor.

“The government does not support the rollout of the ULEZ to the whole of Greater London – we’ve been very clear about that.”

Under ULEZ, drivers of polluting vehicles are charged £12.50 per day.

Khan has insisted that its expansion is necessary to improve air quality across the whole of London.

However, the move was blamed for Labour’s failure to win the recent Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, which prompted Keir Starmer to urge the mayor to re-think the policy.

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Major Boost For Rishi Sunak As Tories See Off Labour Challenge In Uxbridge

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The Conservatives have narrowly beaten Labour to retain Boris Johnson’s former seat following a bitter by-election campaign.

In a major blow for Keir Starmer, Steve Tuckwell beat Tory candidate Danny Beales by just 495 votes to become the new MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

The by-election was called following Johnson’s dramatic resignation last month after he was found guilty by the privileges committee of repeatedly lying to parliament over partygate.

The former prime minister retained the seat with a majority of 7,210 at the 2019 election.

Tuckwell received 13,965 votes to Beales’s 13,470 to claim the constituency for the Tories once again.

The Conservatives effectively turned the by-election into a referendum on Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s decision to expand London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) across the whole of the city from next month.

The result of a huge boost for Rishi Sunak, who had been braced for the Tories to lose the seat, given the unpopularity of the government and Labour’s commanding lead in the national polls.

A Labour spokesperson said: “This was always going to be a difficult battle in a seat that has never had a Labour MP and we didn’t even win in 1997. We know that the Conservatives crashing the economy has hit working people hard, so it’s unsurprising that the ULEZ expansion was a concern for voters here in a by-election.”

Elsewhere, Labour have won the Selby and Ainsty by-election after toppling one of the safest Tory seats in the country.

And in the third by-election of the night, the Lib Dems pulled off a stunning victory in a previously safe Tory seat of Somerton and Frome.

Despite the Conservatives avoiding a three-nil defeat, the swing in the vote went away from the Tories in every seat.

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Harriet Harman Tearful After Tory MP’s Defence Against Partygate Attacks From Boris Johnson Allies

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The House of Commons was emotional as a Conservative MP made a moving tribute to Harriet Harman following attacks from Tories over Boris Johnson and partygate.

Conservatives allied to Johnson have suggested veteran Labour MP Harman, who chaired the privileges committee which found the former MP guilty of lying to parliament repeatedly, was biased because of tweets she posted about partygate before taking up the role.

On Monday, MPs approved the committee’s report that judged the former prime minister’s outriders had launched a “co-ordinated” attack on its work.

During a debate ahead of the report being nodded through without the need for a vote, Conservative MP Laura Farris made an intervention damning her Tory colleagues.

Harman has long been aware of the potential issue – and asked the government for the green light to continue as chair of the committee investigating Johnson.

Harman said she wanted to avoid the “perception” that she was biased against the former PM – and was “assured that I should continue the work” by the prime minister at the time, which was still Johnson.

During Monday’s debate, Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Johnson loyalist who was criticised for his role in the attacks on the committee, maintained it was “legitimate to question” Harman’s position.

But Farris took a different view, defending Harman and paying tribute to her career – with her parliamentary colleague close to tears as a result.

Farris said: “The member for Camberwell and Peckham (Harman’s constituency) had already announced her intention to retire from parliament at the next election.

“A parliamentary career that has spanned five decades and has been defined by her commitment to the advancement of women’s rights.

“Fourteen weeks before she took up that appointment (as committee chair) her husband of 40 years, Jack, had died.

“Against this background, I invite members of the House to consider what is more likely – that she agreed to chair the committee as a final act of service to this House, or that she did so because she was interested in pursuing a personal vendetta against Boris Johnson.”

Farris continued: “It is completely unacceptable to allege or insinuate that members of the privileges committee are corrupt or that the inquiry was somehow rigged.”

Harman’s husband, Labour MP Jack Dromey, died suddenly in his flat in Birmingham in January last year.

The initial report by the privileges committee, which has a Conservative majority, suggested Johnson should face a 90-day Commons suspension if he had not already quit parliament ahead of its release.

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Alastair Campbell Tells Question Time Brexit Voters ‘You Were Lied To’ By ‘Conmen’ Johnson And Farage

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Alastair Campbell has hit out at “conmen” Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage as he told Brexit voters on BBC Question Time they were “lied to”.

The corporation’s flagship politics show on Thursday held a “special” in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex to mark the seventh anniversary of the 2016 vote. Some 70% of people in the area voted to get out of the bloc and only Brexit voters were in the audience for the programme.

Campbell, the Tony Blair-era Labour Party spin chief, has been a fierce critic of leaving the European Union. On the show, the Rest is Politics podcaster said he understood why the audience members wanted to exit the EU – but that they were “lied to” and told it “would be pain-free” and “all be upsides”, as he pointed to the fall in the pound, a lack of a trade deal with the US and the claim of more money for the NHS.

He said: “Look, I understand why a lot of you guys voted for Brexit because you felt that Johnson, Farage … these conmen were coming along offering you something that was going to make your lives better.

“And I was in a school today, just a few minutes away from here. Clacton Coastal Academy. Really bright kids. Really nice teachers. Fantastic school in a very tough area, and I asked the kids what they thought of Brexit and all but two said they would vote to rejoin the European Union if they had the chance.”

He went on: “I don’t blame you for voting. I blame them for lying to you. They lied. They’ve not been properly held to account.

“Johnson’s gone from lying about Covid. He’s still not properly been held accountable for Brexit.

“And we’re all of us paying a higher price in our cost of living and everything else because of the lies that we were told.”

He later said Brexit is “one of the biggest acts of self-harm that we as a country have ever inflicted upon ourselves”, and that Johnson “never believed in Brexit”.

“Boris Johnson went for the referendum as a way of advancing his own career and becoming prime minister,” Campbell said. “The mess he’s left this country in, he should never be forgiven.”

Critics of leaving the EU have cited the impact on the pound, imports and labour costs, and other economies on the continent powering ahead. Britain’s higher rate of inflation compared to other major economies has also been blamed in part on Brexit thanks to higher administration costs and a small pool of workers.

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Boris Johnson Has Been Stripped Of His Parliamentary Pass For Lying To MPs

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Boris Johnson has been stripped of his parliamentary pass for repeatedly lying to the House of Commons over partygate.

MPs voted 354 to 7 to support last week’s privileges committee’s report which found him guilty of misleading parliament by insisting lockdown rules were followed in Downing Street during the pandemic.

Johnson resigned as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip 10 days ago after seeing an advance copy of the committee’s report.

Had he remained an MP, the committee said it would have recommended he be suspended from the Commons for 90 days.

Johnson described the inquiry as a “kangaroo court” and claimed he was the victim of a political stitch-up.

But following a five-hour debate, an overwhelming majority of MPs voted to back the committee’s findings, including the recommendation that Johnson should have the parliamentary pass given to former MPs removed.

The debate also exposed the deep splits within the Tories over their former leader, with around 200 of the party’s MPs – including prime minister Rishi Sunak – abstaining by failing to take part in the vote.

Some 118 Tory MPs voted to back the committee’s findings, including cabinet ministers Alex Chalk, Penny Mordaunt Gillian Keegan, and former PM Theresa May.

The Tories who voted against the committee’s report were Joy Morrisey, Karl McCartney, Adam Holloway, Heather Wheeler, Nick Fletcher and Bill Cash.

In a bizarre interview this morning, Sunak repeatedly refused to say what he thought of the report, insisting he “wouldn’t want to influence” any MPs on how to vote.

Meanwhile, the prime minister’s official spokesman said he was too busy with other engagements, including hosting the prime minister of Sweden, to attend parliament.

Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “Tonight Rishi Sunak committed a cowardly cop-out. His failure to vote says all you need to know about this prime minister’s lack of leadership.

“Sunak promised integrity yet when push came to shove, he was too weak to even turn up.”

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Guto Harri Suggests Boris Johnson ‘Deprived Of Livelihood’ By Partygate Report

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Guto Harri has suggested the MPs who pronounced Boris Johnson misled parliament have deprived him of a livelihood.

Appearing on BBC Question Time, Harri, a former Johnson aide, indicated he thought the privileges committee was not “beyond reproach”, citing the fact one-time Labour leader chaired the group.

Harri argued the “quasi-judicial process” was beyond the remit of the Commons – a talking point put forward by a number of Johnson loyalists.

But this has been countered repeatedly by the argument that the Conservative Party holds a majority of MPs on the committee, and Johnson has been represented by Lord Pannick, one of the country’s leading lawyers, at the public’s expense.

On Thursday, the privileges committee found Johnson deliberately misled parliament over partygate.

It recommended a 90-day suspension for the ex-prime minister, which he will escape after resigning as an MP, and said he should not receive a pass granting access to parliament which is normally given to former members.

Johnson has been making serious money from speeches since being forced out of Downing Street last year – with one entry in the register of members’ interests in February stating he was paid almost £2.5 million for speeches he hadn’t even made yet.

Question Time’s first debate on Thursday was over whether Johnson’s political career was “dead and buried”.

Harri said: “If you can deprive people of their livelihood, you need to be beyond reproach.

“And the idea that the former leader of the Laboor party can decide essentially on the process and the outcome that drives out a Conservative prime minister from parliament for me, whether you like Boris or not, does not look like due process.”

On the panel, SNP MP David Linden claimed Johnson has voted just three times in the Commons and earned £5 million since he left office. “Boris Johnson probably isn’t going to go hungry as a result of leaving parliament,” he added.

It’s the latest defence of Johnson from loyalists.

Lord Stewart Jackson, a former Conservative MP and another ally of Johnson, suggested the devastating report is “revenge for Brexit”.

Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith told the BBC that the report was “vindictive, spiteful and an over-reach”, adding: “90 days and taking their pass off them is the equivalent of putting somebody in the stocks and touring them round the country.”

Former Cabinet minister Simon Clarke said “this punishment is absolutely extraordinary to the point of sheer vindictiveness”.

Johnson was said to have deliberately misled MPs with his partygate denials and accused of being complicit in a campaign of abuse and intimidation, with the former prime minister hitting out at the “deranged conclusion”.

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‘You Sound Crackers’: Boris Johnson Ally Called Out For Claiming Downfall Is ‘Revenge For Brexit’

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An ally of Boris Johnson has been labelled “crackers” for suggesting the devastating report that could end the former prime minister’s political career is “revenge for Brexit”.

On Thursday, the privileges committee of MPs found Johnson deliberately misled parliament over partygate.

It recommended a 90-day suspension for the ex-prime minister, which he will escape after resigning as an MP, and said he should not receive a pass granting access to parliament which is normally given to former members.

MPs are expected to have a free vote on the proposed sanctions.

On the BBC’s Politics Live soon after the report was published, Lord Stewart Jackson, a former Conservative MP, echoed Johnson’s words by describing the process as “a sham court” and “a kangaroo court”, and said the MPs had conducted a “quasi-judicial process”.

He added: “And there are people there who were out to get him, and what this is effectively is revenge for Brexit dressed up as a judicial process.”

After Jackson insisted the majority of parliament was “hostile to his position on Brexit”, he faced pushback from Ellie Mae O’Hagan from the Good Law Project, which has launched a number of legal challenges against the government.

She said: “I’m sorry, I really don’t like being rude to fellow guests. But you sound crackers … the things you are saying are just crackers … it as like the idea that this is about Brexit, the idea that Britain is now a banana republic …”

You can watch the full exchange below.

Other Johnson loyalists have taken to the airways to defend Johnson.

Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith told the BBC that the report was “vindictive, spiteful and an over-each”, adding: “90 days and taking their pass off them is the equivalent of putting somebody in the stocks and touring them round the country.”

Former Cabinet minister Simon Clarke was also among Johnson’s allies to indicate they would vote against the report, saying “this punishment is absolutely extraordinary to the point of sheer vindictiveness”.

Johnson was said to have deliberately misled MPs with his partygate denials and accused of being complicit in a campaign of abuse and intimidation, with the former prime minister hitting out at the “deranged conclusion”.

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Nadine Dorries Says She Wants Answers To Peerage Snub Before Resigning

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Nadine Dorries is to conduct her own investigation into why she did not get a peerage before actually resigning in the latest twist to the Boris Johnson honours list saga.

The move is in stark contrast to her tweet on Friday, which said: “I have today informed the chief whip that I am standing down as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, with immediate effect.”

The list of new additions to the House of Lords lacked the names of Dorries and another Johnson loyalist, Nigel Adams.

The former prime minister then dramatically announced his Commons exit, as the privileges committee of MPs prepared to report that he lied to parliament over partygate, with Dorries and Adams following suit.

Both Johnson and Adams have triggered the arcane process to officially resign – but Dorries has not, with reports suggesting the former culture secretary is delaying a by-election for her Mid Bedfordshire seat to inflict pain on Rishi Sunak.

The PM is blamed by Dorries for blocking her move to the upper house, though he maintains he only refused to intervene with Lords officials when pressed by Johnson.

On Wednesday night, Dorries broke her silence on the issue – tweeting she will not formally resign until after she gets answers from the government about why she did not get her peerage.

She insisted it is “absolutely my intention to resign” but said her requests for documents from the House of Lords appointments commission “is now sadly necessary” as she accused No 10 of “varying and conflicting statements” over her absence from Johnson’s resignation honours list.

She also vowed to “continue to serve my constituents of Mid Bedfordshire”, after Sunak earlier said her constituents “deserve proper representation”.

With her demands for documents likely to take time, the three by-elections will almost certainly have to take place over separate days.

The move could prolong the misery for the prime minister as he faces a battle to defend three Conservative seats at a time of dire polling as he publicly scraps with Johnson.

Downing Street has expressed bewilderment at her delay in officially quitting. Sunak’s press secretary said: “It’s obviously unusual to have an MP say they will resign with immediate effect and for that not to take place.”

In another Tory fit of pique, Johnson on Wednesday called for a Tory MP to step down from the partygate probe amid extraordinary claims he attended a gathering during lockdown.

The former prime minister wants Bernard Jenkin to resign from the privileges committee, which has been investigating whether he misled MPs over the lockdown scandal. The claim came on the eve of the report’s publication.

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