The Liberal Democrats have written to the government’s Forfeiture Committee seeking to have Boris Johnson’s honours list withdrawn.
Christine Jardine, the party’s spokesperson for the cabinet office, raised doubts about the suitability of the people the former prime minister nominated for titles, including those “implicated in the partygate saga”.
The MP for Edinburgh West also said the events that have occurred since their names were released two weeks ago have “brought the honours system into disrepute” and there are grounds for revoking the list “in its entirety”.
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“I am therefore urging you to open an investigation into the potential withdrawal of all of Boris Johnson’s honours which fall under the scope of your committee,” Ms Jardine said.
On Monday, Mr Johnson was stripped of special access to parliament after MPs endorsed the privileges committee’s findings that he lied about parties in Downing Street during the COVID pandemic.
In its damning report, the cross-party inquiry recommended that the former Tory leader should have served a 90-day suspension from the Commons had he not quit as an MP just days earlier.
Mr Johnson resigned hours after his nominations list was published after receiving an advance copy of the privileges committee’s verdict.
He has continued to deny wrongdoing and hit out at what he claimed was a “kangaroo court”.
In her letter, Ms Jardine condemned Mr Johnson’s “deplorable attacks on the committee and our parliamentary democracy”.
She also pointed to new footage of a Christmas event held at the Conservative Party Headquarters in 2020 when restrictions were in place, saying the so-called “jingle and mingle” had “further deepened public anger” about the former prime minister’s honours.
The bash was attended by former London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and Tory aide Ben Mallet, who were put forward for a peerage and an OBE respectively by Mr Johnson.
Political aides who worked with Mr Johnson during the partygate scandal were also nominated for honours, alongside Conservative allies of the former prime minister including ex-cabinet ministers Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Charlotte Owen, a former adviser to Mr Johnson who graduated in 2015, will become the youngest ever life peer.
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Ms Jardine said: “Clearly, the circumstances around this list – and the events which have occurred since its release – are unprecedented and have brought the honours system into disrepute.
“I believe that there are grounds for examining whether Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list can be revoked in its entirety. “
The Forfeiture Committee’s website says an honour can be withdrawn “for a variety of reasons, including criminal conviction and bringing the honours system into disrepute”.
It deals with honours such as knighthoods rather than peerages, which can only be removed by an act of parliament.
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Ms Jardine said: “To accept an honour from Boris Johnson is an act which itself brings the system into disrepute – and I would argue that it is, therefore, grounds for revoking. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.”
The letter comes as the government attempts to draw a line under the honours row, which has seen Mr Johnson embroiled in a public spat with Rishi Sunak over certain nominees who were removed from the list.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said on Monday that the “caravan has got to move on” from the former prime minister after the Commons overwhelmingly backed the sanctions against him.
But, in a sign of the Tory civil war continuing, Senior Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood earlier said Mr Bailey should reconsider the peerage handed to him by the former prime minister.
And cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt also raised concern yesterday, saying during the debate about the privileges report that Britons believe there has been “debasement of the honours system” by Mr Johnson.
