What a way to celebrate a birthday . . . Boris Johnson’s, that is. He turned 59 on Monday. Was there cake, you may wonder, but don’t ask. Like the reputed slur on Marie Antoinette’s good name — “Let them eat cake,” which historians dispute — it was that sugary confection that got the ex-premier into sweet trouble.

Fortunately, unlike the French queen, BoJo will not lose his head. He may, however, lose his complimentary pass to the Palace of Westminster, for the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to accept the Privileges Committee report that found him guilty of five charges of contempt of Parliament.

Key to its recommendations was the lengthy 90-day suspension — two or three times the duration of previous suspensions handed out to others — leveled against Mr. Johnson for “being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee,” for which BoJo loyalist Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg argued there was not a “single, solitary shred of evidence.”

Moving from the “vindictive to the ridiculous,” in Sir Jacob’s words, was the issue of the pass. “Of all the trivial sanctions you could impose on somebody that seems to be the most miserable.”

Perhaps “trivial” and “miserable” was the order of the day. Of 650 MPs, only 358 bothered to vote. Of those, 352 voted “aye” to the report — including 118 Tories and eight members of Cabinet — with six no votes. Meanwhile there were 225 members who were absent or abstained from voting — most of whom were Conservative colleagues and government ministers. As for Prime Minister Sunak, he was too busy hosting his Swedish counterpart to attend the Commons debate. The Express posted the names in full. 

BoJo loyalists may want to study the list in detail, but the only household name that stands out among the nays is that of Sir William Cash. Astaunch Brexiteer of many years standing and chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, Sir Bill was among the six who voted no. Sadly, at 83 years of age, he will be standing down at the next general election.

Given the composition of the Commons, it was no surprise the report was accepted. Opposition parties and anti-Johnson Tories would have sufficient numbers to overwhelm his allies. Witness the numbers above. Mr. Johnson himself told supporters “not to die in a ditch” on his behalf.

About that list . . . the grassroots group Conservative Democratic Organisation, set up last year to protest the parliamentary party’s stitch-up over the ousting of two Tory prime ministers, Mr. Johnson and Liz Truss, has been fielding calls from irate card-carrying members about how to deselect MPs who voted for the Privileges Committee report.  

Two routes, according to CDO co-founder David Campbell Bannerman, are through Annual General Meetings or “by obtaining 10 percent of registered members to back a Vote of No Confidence Motion.”

Mr. Campbell Bannerman, though, is quick to add (doubtless with a wink-of-the-eye), “Whilst the CDO doesn’t directly get involved in deselections, we seek to provide a wide range of advice to our members.”

One Conservative MP who may be targeted for deselection is former premier and Remainer Theresa May. She spoke in the Commons this afternoon urging her colleagues to vote for the report.

Ms. May observed that “we have a greater responsibility than most to uphold the rules and set an example.” True, but is this the example worth death-in-a-ditch, to paraphrase Mr. Johnson? That “Parliament is capable of dealing with members who transgress the rules of this House,” thus upholding “the sovereignty of Parliament,” was seen as a not-too-subtle dig at BoJo’s defense of Brexit.

As was, perhaps, with an equal dash of obtuseness, her claim that the vote was “an important step in restoring people’s trust in members of this House and of Parliament.” Yet who can forget that the aforementioned trust was betrayed when she was premier, by herself and a Remainer majority, to frustrate the 2016 referendum for UK independence?

Contrast Ms. May with Johnson supporter Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. Speaking in the chamber for 10 minutes while brandishing the report, Sir Jacob criticized the Privileges Committee for its vindictiveness — if the Diarist may paraphrase Alan Dershowitz in relation to President Trump — to “get Boris.”

The Committee began its witch-hunt by taking Mr. Johnson’s Partygate fine as an instance of “an admission of guilt.” No less egregious, in Sir Jacob’s opinion, was the Committee’s clairvoyance in stating of at least one Downing Street gathering of which Mr. Johnson claimed ignorance: “We conclude that Mr. Johnson is unlikely to have been unaware.”

What kind of burden of proof is that? It is an “obscure use of a double negative to try to impute malfeasance to somebody where the Committee cannot prove it,” Sir Jacob argued, and thus “assumes something and imputes something because it wants to come to a particular conclusion.”

Yet it is Sir Jacob’s concluding comment that indicates the lasting impact of the Privileges Committee report. “It is absolutely legitimate to criticize the conduct of a committee, to criticize the members of a committee.” For so doing, Mr. Johnson was accused of ad hominem attack. For Mr. Rees-Mogg, as for the long tradition of popular democracy, “That is politics.”

Sir Jacob sees it for what it is, censorship. “We must defend the right of freedom of speech.” Yet freedom of speech — as of association and property rights, among others — lies at the heart of the Brexit project. Such British freedoms, like Brexit itself,  drive Remainers and “The Blob” to distraction and paroxysm of indignation. 

The Diarist only wonders if Sir Jacob spoke ironically of his colleagues’ hounding of Boris Johnson out of Parliament: “If politicians cannot cope with criticism you wonder what on earth they are doing with a political career.”

BrexitDiarist@gmail.com