Honiton MP responds to committee findings that Boris Johnson 'deliberately' misled Parliament 'on multiple occasions'

A parliamentary inquiry into 'partygate' has found that the former prime minster, Boris Johnson, deliberately misled parliament and that he did so repeatedly.

The damning 30,000 word cross-party report, which was chaired by Labour MP Harriet Harman, recommended that, if Mr Johnson, was still an MP, he should receive a suspension from parliament of 90 days.

This would far exceed the period required to trigger a recall of parliament and a possible by-election in his constituency, Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

Mr Johnson resigned as an MP last week after receiving advance notice of the committee's findings and this has trigged a by-election.

In a further recommendation, the committee said that Mr Johnson should not be given a former member's pass granting access to parliament.

The privileges committee is made up of seven members. There are four Conservative MPs, two Labour MPs and one MP representing the SNP.

The MPs on the committee concluded that Mr Johnson's defence - that no one had advised him the gatherings were against the rules - was not credible.

Honiton's MP, Richard Foord, has responded to the report. In a statement to Honiton Nub News, Mr Foord said: "Boris Johnson should have stood down when it became apparent that he had misled Parliament. Instead, he waited until the last possible second to resign before the publication of this damning report.

 "His attempts to discredit and smear MPs from three parties on the Privileges Committee who were seeking to get to the facts is brazen. By suggesting that he might return as an MP ("I'll be back"), he is forgetting to mention one important factor - he would need to persuade the electorate, who we MPs are here to serve.

 "This whole saga proves what we suspected for a long time - that Boris Johnson has taken our communities for granted. The back-and-forth over who said what to who regarding peerages is tiresome and it is time to move forward and focus on the future.

 "I will be voting to support the Committee's recommendations."

Mr Johnson called the report's findings 'deranged' and a 'charade'.