Jacob Rees-Mogg has claimed the “haters of Brexit” are out to get Boris Johnson ahead of an inquiry into whether the former prime minister lied to parliament about Partygate.
Speaking on his GB News show, the Tory ally of Johnson hit out at the committee of MPs conducting the investigation, due to start on Wednesday.
The panel is made up of four Conservative MPs, two Labour and one from the SNP. Their number includes prominent Brexiteer, Bernand Jenkin.
He said: “The privileges committee is not even a proper legal setup.
“It has a gossamer of constitutional propriety thrown over it, but it is in fact a political committee against Boris Johnson who had a mandate. And why is his mandate challenged? Why has it been successfully challenged?
“Well, of course, it’s by the haters of Brexit, the haters of Brexit who never accepted the election result that he achieved and what he did to take this country out of the European Union.”
The Privileges Committee is examining evidence around at least four occasions when Mr Johnson may have misled MPs with his assurances to the Commons that lockdown rules were followed.
He is expected to highlight previously undisclosed WhatsApp messages from senior civil servants and members of his No 10 team showing he had relied on their advice when he made his statements to Parliament.
He will also publish messages which show other senior figures in Downing Street believed the gatherings were covered by the “workplace exemption” in the lockdown rules.
The committee will publish its findings on whether Mr Johnson committed a contempt of Parliament and make a recommendation on any punishment but the ultimate decision will fall to the full House of Commons.
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