Boris is off his trolley if he thinks he has a hope in hell of a comeback

It was not, as Boris Johnson claimed, a “dreadful day for MPs and for democracy”. It was a good day for both.

The Commons privileges committee’s scathing report on Johnson has reasserted parliament’s right to hold ministers to account, and, crucially, ensure they tell the truth. In future, if they mislead parliament inadvertently, they will feel under pressure to correct the record quickly – something Johnson failed to do, the committee found.

This landmark report is not, as Johnson and his allies allege, the revenge of a Remain establishment against the person who took the UK out of the EU, as his former Brexit negotiator David Frost claims today. The two senior Tories on the Tory-dominated privileges committee, Bernard Jenkin and Charles Walker, are Brexiteers. Nor was its verdict pre-cooked from the outset, as Johnson’s cheerleaders claim. Walker offered Johnson an escape route from a severe punishment when he gave evidence to the committee in March, by asking him whether he was reckless in his statements to parliament. Johnson was too stubborn to take it and doubled down on his lies, compounding his offence.

As for the original disclosures, ITV News, which broke some of the Partygate revelations, has revealed all its sources voted for Brexit and for Johnson.

One whistleblower told it: “People have not conspired on groups within Number 10 or the government to actively ploy against the then PM. To say it was organised… is total rubbish.”

Perhaps it will come as a surprise to Johnson that some of his own aides had a conscience. Acknowledging that wouldn’t fit with the Trump-like betrayal narrative that casts the former PM as a victim and seeks to make him a martyr. It’s a fantasy, but it's a danger to our democracy. The dwindling but noisy band of Johnson fans who peddle the myth must be ignored.

Remarkably, they accuse the committee of being anti-democratic. Johnson even had the nerve to say: “It is for the people of this country to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman [the committee chair]”. Yet characteristically, he ran away from the appointment with his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituents the report would have created.

The committee is right to say Johnson’s description of it as a “kangaroo court” presiding over a “witch hunt” and doubting the integrity of its members “amounts to an attack on our democratic institutions.” The body was not self-appointed, but did the job parliament rightly asked it to – with no objections from any MP.

The parallels with Donald Trump are chilling. The federal charges against the former US president for retaining classified documents have boosted his prospects of winning the Republican party nomination for next year’s election.

Similarly, Johnson’s fellow populists have convinced themselves what they call the committee’s “vindictive” report will enhance Johnson’s chances of making a comeback (though privately they concede this will now have to be after next year’s election). It is Team Johnson that is “deranged” – not the committee's verdict, as Johnson claimed. Surely, he cannot come back after this.

His allies’ attempt to discredit the committee’s report makes it all the more important that parliament shows that the UK is not America when it comes up for approval in the Commons on Monday.

Rishi Sunak should send a strong signal by voting to support it rather than join those Tory MPs who will take advantage of a thin one-line whip and abstain. Sunak finding himself detained on other business would be a coward’s way out, typical of Johnson himself. (As foreign secretary, he travelled to Afghanistan to dodge a Commons vote to approve a third runway at Heathrow, which he had vowed to block).

A proper Commons vote rather than MPs merely calling out “aye” and “no” would show how little support Johnson has; only about 20 Tory backbenchers would likely vote against the report. If Sunak abstains, he will send a message to voters he is lukewarm about the need to sweep the stables clean. Labour, whose favourite attack line is to portray him as “weak,” would love it if he spurned this opportunity to deliver the “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level” he promised.

Tory MPs should vote for the report and ignore anti-democratic efforts by Johnson acolytes to mobilise grassroots members to threaten them with deselection as candidates. Any Tory MP with conflicting loyalties should remember where Johnson’s loyalties lie. Out of pure self-interest (to keep alive his flickering comeback flame) he wants Sunak to lose next year’s election – and so wants many of them to lose their seats. They should now treat him with the contempt he has shown parliament.