Ten days after Boris Johnson abruptly quit Britain’s Parliament, his former colleagues delivered a stinging rebuke to the former prime minister, overwhelmingly ratifying a report that concluded he deliberately misled lawmakers about lockdown-breaking parties held in Downing Street during the coronavirus pandemic.
The vote revealed a Conservative Party still somewhat divided by Mr. Johnson’s polarizing leadership. But rather than take a clear position on the findings, by a powerful parliamentary committee, a large proportion of Conservative lawmakers abstained and just seven members of Parliament rejected the report.
That allowed it to be accepted by the House of Commons without Conservatives having to go on the record as backing or opposing Mr. Johnson, who remains popular in some quarters of the party but detested by some voters for the double standard he tolerated over pandemic restrictions.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose resignation as chancellor of the Exchequer last summer helped precipitate Mr. Johnson’s ouster from Downing Street, did not turn up for the debate, drawing criticism from the opposition Labour Party that he lacked the courage to publicly repudiate his wayward predecessor (Mr. Sunak’s office said he was otherwise engaged, citing, among other obligations, a Downing Street meeting with his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson).
Still, however tortured the deliberations, the outcome was a damning verdict for Mr. Johnson. It foreclosed — at least for the moment — any plausible return to power for a flamboyant figure whose three years in Downing Street were marked by a landslide electoral victory in 2019 but nearly ceaseless scandals after that.
After more than five hours of discussion lawmakers voted by 354 to 7 to approve the report, a crushing victory for Mr. Johnson’s critics. In all there are 650 members of the House of Commons, but many Conservative lawmakers took no part in the proceeding and avoided upsetting either party activists who remain loyal to Mr. Johnson — or voters in general, among whom he is unpopular, according to opinion polls.
In a debate marked by sorrow, anger and occasional flashes of humor, lawmakers from both sides stood up to condemn Mr. Johnson for his duplicity and to call for Parliament to endorse the report, as a way of rebuilding trust in British public life. A handful of Tories spoke in defense of Mr. Johnson, a shrunken band of loyalists for a figure who once enjoyed firm command of the House of Commons.
Mr. Johnson’s predecessor as prime minister, Theresa May, said she would vote in favor of the report because its conclusions “strike at the heart of the bond of truth between the Parliament and the public that underpins our work.”
“I also say to fellow members of my own party, that it is doubly important for us to show that we are prepared to act when one of our own, however senior, is found wanting,” Mrs. May said, a comment that some saw as an implicit criticism of Mr. Sunak’s absence from the debate.
Harriet Harman, a Labour Party lawmaker who chaired the investigation by the Privileges Committee, the House of Commons panel that produced the report, said, “Ministers must be truthful; if not, we cannot do our job,” adding: “Mr. Johnson’s dishonesty, if left unchecked, would have contaminated all our democracy.” Several lawmakers, including Labour’s Jess Phillips, pointedly referred to the former prime minister lying — a term normally not used in the chamber but permitted in this instance because of the conclusions of the report.
Mr. Johnson resigned his parliamentary seat on June 9 after seeing an early draft of the findings of the yearlong investigation. He angrily dismissed the committee as a “kangaroo court,” even though a majority of its members was drawn from his own party.
The committee proposed revoking his parliamentary pass and said that, had he not already quit, it would have recommended a 90-day suspension from Parliament.
As a practical matter, the Commons’ acceptance of the report will have a limited effect on Mr. Johnson. Losing his pass simply means he must be accompanied by another member if he wants to enter Parliament’s buildings. But symbolically, it represents a thunderous repudiation of Mr. Johnson by his former peers.
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is,” said Labour’s shadow leader of the House, Thangam Debbonaire, turning the words of Mr. Johnson’s political hero Winston Churchill against him.
“This isn’t just the reasonable person test, it’s the ‘Who on earth do you think you are kidding?’ test,” Ms. Debbonaire said. “And he fails both.”
Mr. Johnson’s defenders questioned how the committee could…
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