Rishi Sunak’s Government simply must move on from Boris Johnson

Foul stench of Brexit revenge

IT is not a plot. It is not a co-ordinated conspiracy by Boris Johnson supporters. The committee which found him guilty and imposed such insanely vindictive punishment simply stinks to high heaven.

These seven MPs and their supporters clutched their pearls yesterday over any suggestion that they were not scrupulously impartial, fair and measured. Who do they think they are kidding?

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The original chairman, Tory-hating Labour MP Chris Bryant, admitted his own bias and stood down.

Yet it was somehow OK to replace him with Labour’s Harriet Harman, who had already repeatedly tweeted her condemnation of Boris and lockdown breaches.

Her mind was made up on him decades ago.

It is alleged too that Tory Bernard Jenkin, no friend of Boris, broke Covid rules himself at a drinks party far more clearly recreational than anything the ex-PM attended.

How odd that he never confessed to that before standing in pious prosecutorial judgement on his old boss.

How, if true, was he fit to serve on that panel? Where is HIS suspension?

After all, this trigger-happy Privileges Committee is threatening to discipline any MP merely daring to criticise it — a monstrous assault on free speech.

No Remainer could hide glee

It might have avoided this firestorm had it not gone so wildly over the top.

Some of Boris’s behaviour in No10 WAS slapdash, reckless even.

He was not overall a great PM — but almost his entire time was engulfed by Covid and Russia’s war.

His early action on jabs saved countless lives. His global leadership on Ukraine was indisputable.

So the committee could have had a little respect for those achievements.

It could have regretfully found against him (despite lacking proof a real court would need) and briefly suspended him.

Instead it treated him like a murderer, dished out an incredible 90-day suspension and recommended that this former PM elected by popular acclaim less than four years ago be barred for LIFE from the Parliamentary estate.

The glee no Remainer could hide on TV betrayed the real motive for this disproportionate sanction: ­Vengeance. This was their greatest ­triumph since Brexit.

Killing off this uniquely charismatic Tory, who guided Leave to victory in 2016 and broke the Remainers’ three-year blockade of Parliament in 2019, would not suffice.

He had to be buried 12ft under and the dirt tramped down.

The demented Lib Dems even want the £115,000-a-year allowance for all ex-PMs stripped from him. What next? Torch his house? Take his kids away?

The grave danger now for the Tories is tearing themselves to shreds over Boris.

He is the victim of blatant unfairness . . . payback for Brexit.

But Rishi Sunak’s Government simply must move on from him — and Boris and his allies must let it.