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An extraordinary 24 hours in British politics. MPs in the House of Commons voted today on Labour’s motion to refer PM Boris Johnson to the Privileges Committee to investigate whether he misled the Parliament about lockdown parties in Downing Street.
Initially, No. 10 initially attempted to delay the vote but they dropped that strategy at the eleventh hour.
Ahead of the vote this morning, Commons Leader Mark Spencer said that any Tory member of the Parliament can vote whichever way they choose.
Speaker of the House said that “Tory MPs would be free to vote as they wished, leaving Labour to make its case.”
Johnson is in on a two day trip to India at the moment, meeting with Narendra Modi, looking to broker post-Brexit free trade deal. Ahead of the vote, he made a comment.
“I am very keen for every possible form of scrutiny and the House of Commons can do what it wants to do. All I would say is that I don’t think that should happen until the investigation is completed. That is my only… I have said this time and again, let’s let the investigators do their stuff and then knock this thing on the head.”
Has the Johnson’s government underestimated the anger of its own MPs over Partygate?
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