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8:29am on Friday, 16th June, 2023:
Comment
The big news yesterday in the UK was a brutal report by the House of Commons Privileges Committee into the behaviour of Boris Johnson, who, as Prime Minister, told falsehoods to parliament. Telling falsehoods isn't actually so bad if you believe at the time that they're true and then correct them when you learn that they're false. The committee found that he knew they were false when he said them.
Newspapers were taken by surprise at this finding. The committee has seven members, four of whom are from Johnson's own party. Journalists naturally expected the vote to split along partisan lines, because all politicians are corrupt, right? In fact, the decision was unanimous. The members of the committee demonstrated some integrity, and looked at the evidence objectively. The only slight sign of possible partisan behaviour was that two opposition MPs wanted to give an even harsher punishment, but then if everyone had the exact same opinion there wouldn't be a need for a committee in the first place.
One of the committee members is my local MP, by the way, Sir Bernard Jenkin. When journalists write pieces explaining "Who are the members of the House of Commons Privileges Committee?", he's one of the reasons why.
Boris Johnson accused the committee of bias, for which they recommended to increase his 10-day ban by another 80 days. The findings of the committee have to be voted on by the House of Commons in order to come into effect, and journalists are expecting that most MPs will vote for political reasons rather than for reasons to do with maintaining trust in the parliamentary system. It doesn't particularly matter, because Johnson has resigned his seat anyway.
The committee members, then, if not necessarily MPs in general, seem to be honest.
Let's now look at what would happen if members of the Privileges Committee were corrupt.
Suppose that the Leader of the Opposition, Sir Kier Starmer, were to make a statement in parliament that is true. The PM accuses him of lying, and passes the case to the Privileges Committee. The opposition members of the committee see that it's a sham and vote against, but the corrupt, government members of the committee agree that it was a lie and ban Starmer. The decision on whether or not to accept the committee's findings goes to the House of Commons, and because (by definition) the government has more MPs than do the combined opposition parties, Starmer is kicked out. This would be despite his having done nothing to break any parliamentary rules or national laws.
We're OK, then, while the Privileges Committee has integrity. The moment it doesn't, we're in trouble.
I'm thinking that maybe we should have judges rule on this kind of thing, not politicians.
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