Harriet Harman with teary-eyed as Tory MP, Laura Farris, pays tribute to her work and reminds the Commons she took up the role of privileges committee chair not long after her husband died.
Meanwhile, during the debate, Tory MP Laura Farris’s tribute to Harriet Harman appeared to leave the Privileges Committee chairwoman tearful. Ms Farris applauded Ms Harman’s parliamentary career, alongside many other MPs who spoke out against attempts by Mr Johnson’s allies to undermine her work.
She said: “Fourteen weeks before she took up that appointment (as committee chairwoman) 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.
Former cabinet ministers such as Jacob Rees-Mogg said “it was legitimate and it is legitimate” to question the impartiality of the Labour MP Harriet Harman, who chaired the investigation that concluded that Johnson deliberately misled parliament.
In a combative debate, Johnson’s allies huddled on one side of the government benches with Tory members of the committee and their own supporters grouped together on the other.
MPs heard how agitating by Johnson’s followers had forced the parliamentary security services to urgently reassess committee members’ safety at their constituency offices, homes and events.
Harman, who at one point was teary-eyed when a Tory MP came to her defence by reminding colleagues she had lost her husband 14 weeks before taking on the job, spoke of how it had felt like “open season” for attacks on the committee.
MPs have approved the Privileges Committee report that rebuked the conduct of Boris Johnson’s allies.
MPs on Monday approved the latest report, which singled out seven Tory MPs and three Tory peers as being part of a “co-ordinated campaign of interference” with the committee’s inquiry into former PM Boris Johnson’s conduct.
Those named by the report included close Johnson allies Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries, Priti Patel, Andrea Jenkyns and Michael Fabricant. It found that the ex-PM’s pals, including Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dame Priti Patel and Nadine Dorries, had wanted to stop the inquiry “coming to a conclusion which the critics did not want”. Several of the named MPs spoke out in defence of their interference during the more than three-hour long debate however it was not enough to persuade their fellow MPs, who overwhelmingly approved the Privileges Committee report without the need for a formal vote. Meanwhile, during the debate, Tory MP Laura Farris’s tribute to Harriet Harman appeared to leave the Privileges Committee chairwoman tearful. Ms Farris applauded Ms Harman’s parliamentary career, alongside many other MPs who spoke out against attempts by Mr Johnson’s allies to undermine her work.
She said: “Fourteen weeks before she took up that appointment (as committee chairwoman) 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.”
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