Inside Politics: ‘Absolute baloney’
PM tries to win backing of MPs ahead of Commons vote on whether he misled parliament, writes Matt Mathers
How to drum up support among MPs to stave off a potentially damaging vote on your conduct? Give the BBC another good kicking, of course. Boris Johnson last night accused Auntie of being more critical of his government’s Rwanda plan for asylum seekers than Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Getting stuck into the Beeb might gee up the troops but it will not make Thursday’s vote on whether to investigate the PM for allegedly misleading parliament go away. Back benchers who have stayed silent on the Partygate scandal must now decide if they are with the Big Dog or not.
Inside the bubble
Commons action gets underway at 11.30am with Cop26 questions to Alok Sharma, followed by PMQs at noon. After that is any urgent questions or statements. Later, MPs will consider changes made by the Lords to the Subsidy Control Bill, Building Safety Bill and Nationality and Borders Bill.
Coming up:
– Small business minister Paul Scully on ITV GMB at 8.30am
– Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner on Times Radio Breakfast at 8.35am
Daily Briefing
- SORRY: Johnson apologised to MPs in the Commons yesterday for his Covid fine and faced fresh calls to resign for breaking the law. Earlier in the day, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, granted a request by opposition MPs to hold a vote on whether or not the PM should be investigated for misleading parliament, which he again denied while addressing the chamber. Tory MPs will most likely be put on a three-line whip for Thursday’s vote – so don’t expect it to pass, although the proceedings will still be worth keeping an eye on to see how many abstain. Backbenchers who have kept their powder dry on Johnson’s future will be forced to very publicly nail their colours to the mast, potentially revealing the true scale of discontent over the Partygate scandal. Those who support the government or abstain leave themselves open to yet more accusations by opposition parties that they are supporting a law-breaking PM.
- JETTING OFF: Johnson addressed Tory MPs at a private meeting last night as he prepared to head off to India for a two-day trip. Attempting to rally the troops ahead of the Commons vote, the PM reportedly accused the BBC and the Archbishop of Canterbury of being more critical of his Rwanda migrants plan than Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He is due to depart for India today on a visit to “deepen the long-term partnership between our countries.” Plans for Johnson to visit India have been twice cancelled in the past, first over the UK’s winter wave of Covid infections and then in April last year in response to a new variant hitting India. But government sources insisted the trip for talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi was “definitely happening” despite pressure to cancel it so he can attend Thursday’s debate and vote. Speaking to BBC Radio 4 Today earlier, Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, described claims by the PM that it didn’t occur to him that he had broken the rules as “absolutely baloney” that the public will “see through”. We’ll have all today’s politics action on our liveblog.
- UKRAINE LATEST: Ukraine remains defiant in the face of a fresh Russian assault in the east. In his latest nightly address, Volodymyr Zelensky said fighting had intensified near Kharkiv in the northeast, in the Donbas region and in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The situation in Mariupol, which has been under siege for weeks, remains as “severe as possible,” the Ukraine president warned. Meanwhile, reports this morning say Ukraine has reached a preliminary agreement with Russia to establish a humanitarian corridor to evacuate women, children and the elderly out of the port city in the southeast, according to the country’s deputy PM. “Given the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Mariupol, this is where we will focus our efforts today,” Iryna Vereshchuk wrote in a post on Facebook. We’ll have all the latest updates on our liveblog.
- COST OF LIVING LATEST: MPs were told by energy bosses yesterday that as many as four in 10 people in Britain could fall into fuel poverty in October. ScottishPower chief executive Keith Anderson said the government should take £1,000 off the bills of the poorest people in the country in October. The government or billpayers would then pay this off over 10 years, he suggested. “I think the problem’s got to the size and scale that it requires something significant of that nature where those people who are deemed to be in fuel poverty or vulnerable need something of the size and scale that puts their bills back to where it used to be before the gas crisis,” he told MPs on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee.
- RWANDA PLAN LATEST: Theresa May became the latest high profile Tory MP to criticise the government’s Rwanda asylum seeker plan as she questioned its “legality, practicality and efficacy”. The former PM and home secretary – architect of the “hostile environment” that played a role in the Windrush scandal – told her successor Priti Patel in the Commons that she could not support the policy and demanded evidence that “this will not simply lead to an increase in the trafficking of women and children”.
The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.
On the record
“Let me also say, not by way of mitigation or excuse but purely because it explains my previous words in this house, that it did not occur to me then or subsequently that a gathering in the cabinet room just before a vital meeting on Covid strategy could amount to a breach of the rules.”
PM’s statement to Commons.
From the Twitterati
“Thursday vote will be another awkward moment for PM, but Tories will be whipped within an inch of their careers not to back an investigation. Real challenge for PM could be more fines -> poor local elections -> full Sue Gray report. Early summer probably the crunch point for MPs.”
FT Whitehall editor Sebastian Payne on Partygate.
Essential reading
- John Rentoul, The Independent: Boris Johnson had no choice but to throw himself upon the mercy of Conservative MPs
- Hamish McRae, The Independent: Jacob Rees-Mogg’s back-to-work comments prove he has a lot to learn
- Marina Hyde, The Guardian: Seriously, Tory party, there is no pooper scooper big enough to clear up Johnson’s constant mess
- Isabel Hardman, The Spectator: What’s the real point of Priti Patel’s Rwanda migrant plan?
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