For many MPs and political commentators, it was the Patterson case that really rocked the Conservative caucus
of Thanasis Gavou
At the end of August 2019, Queen Elizabeth ordered the suspension of the British Parliament for more than a month, between September and October, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
This highly controversial move by the country’s leader, and the unusually long period of the suspension, was seen by the opposition and political commentators as an unconstitutional attempt to avoid legislative scrutiny of the government’s Brexit plans, which was scheduled for the end of that October.
The Johnson government presented this move as a routine action to allow time to set the government’s agenda. After all, Boris Johnson had become Prime Minister succeeding Theresa May just a month earlier.
Nevertheless, the Prime Minister’s action was ultimately deemed “illegal” by the country’s Supreme Court, while the Supreme Court of Scotland, which examined a parallel appeal, added to its own verdict that the Prime Minister had in fact “misled” the Queen.
It was the first inkling of what was to come under Prime Minister Johnson.
The pandemic followed.
Boris Johnson has been credited with a lightheartedness in the initial handling of the public health crisis that some scientists believe cost civilian lives.
His government is accused of laxity or conscious decisions that have led to, among other things, the suspension of mass community testing, a delay in the imposition of restrictive measures and, above all, the transfer of patients from hospitals to nursing homes without having been tested for coronavirus.
During the pandemic the prime minister’s closest advisor at the time and now his certain enemy, Dominic Cummings breached lockdown measures by taking a car trip with his family to Barnard Castle.
The place name has now become synonymous with Downing Street’s pandemic mentality that Boris Johnson and those around him were not governed by the same rules as citizens. The prime minister for months did not dismiss his adviser, who had and has countless dislikes within the Tory caucus and somewhere there he started cracking the glass of Mr. Johnson’s shop window for some MPs.
In April 2021, the eventually sacked Mr Cummings began a whirlwind of revelations about the suspicious renovation of the Johnsons’ Downing Street flat.
As it eventually emerged, the vast majority of the £200,000 cost of the refurbishment had been met by a Conservative Party donor, without the donation being declared by the Conservative Party as it should have been. In the course of investigations and revelations, Mr. Johnson even recalled that he “forgot” that he had personally contacted the donor about the cost of the renovation.
When in June 2021 a leaked video showed the then Minister of Health, Matt Hancock, in charge of dealing with the pandemic, to break the rules of the lockdown by becoming sexually involved with an adviser in his office, Boris Johnson’s first reaction was to say that the matter was considered “over”. Amid widespread outcry, he replaced Mr Hancock hours later.
This pattern disregard of public sentiment and ethics in order to protect his allies, Mr. Johnson followed suit in the case of the MP and former minister, Owen Patterson.
In October 2021 the MP was judged by the parliamentary ethics committee to have break the rules seeking through his contacts in ministries and government agencies to advance the interests of companies from which he was paid as a consultant.
To the committee’s proposal to suspend Mr Patterson from the House of Commons, the Prime Minister reacted by having his MPs push for a change in the process of vetting offenses like Mr Patterson’s.
When it became clear that this effort would not bear fruit due to opposition resistance, the government effort was withdrawn and Mr. Patterson resigned.
For many MPs and political commentators, this was the case that really rocked the Conservative caucus, with many members perceiving that its leader was not all that interested in exposing them to the legislature and the world by pressing them to defend apparent wrongdoing. .
In November 2021, revelations began about the so-called ‘partygate’ scandal which led to Boris Johnson being fined by the police – the second time since the suspension of parliament that the sitting Prime Minister has been found to have committed an offence.
In May 2022 he was accused of changing the rules of the code of conduct for members of the government, stipulating that breaches of that code would no longer lead to automatic resignation, to avoid resignation if the parliamentary inquiry into partygate found incrimination for the same findings.
It is no coincidence that two of Boris Johnson’s ethics advisers have resigned, leaving the post vacant as he prepares to leave, having finally been dealt a blow with the Pincher scandal, yet another attempt to protect the unborn and abdicate personal responsibility.
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