Murder in Westminster
I remembered Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's old novel "Murder in the Central Committee" after hearing about the night vote in which a majority of 354 MPs, out of the 650 seats in the Westminster Parliament, decided to literally throw the former Prime Minister and leader of the British Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, out of the chamber.
For five long hours, the representatives of the people's sovereignty unpacked the reasons for their support for the findings of the Commission of Inquiry, whose report concludes that the controversial Johnson knowingly lied to Parliament, something that in British political culture is considered sufficient reason to be stripped of all inherent offices and honours. In this respect, at least, the old politics still has many lessons to teach colleagues elsewhere, where lying has not only been trivialised, but has unfortunately become a common political tool.
To deprive a former Prime Minister of the card that allows him access to Parliament and to roam the halls of Westminster is a humiliation akin to that which used to be practised on soldiers who were publicly stripped of their stripes for not having behaved with sufficient bravery and courage in the face of the enemy, a punishment that even preceded the execution of their death sentence when they had been found guilty of treason.
This humiliation of Boris Johnson is, then, one of those solemn rites that accompany the long-established British tradition, which not only displays with great pomp and circumstance its great pomps and ephemera, but also applies with relentless cadence to those who dare to cross the lines of political decency. "To have misled the House of Commons on a matter of the greatest importance, both to Parliament and to the public, and repeatedly so," states the Commission's main finding on the parties held at the then prime minister's residence and office when the government had imposed severe restrictions and strict confinement on the British people.
Labour opposition MPs have been particularly incisive about Boris Johnson's behaviour, but the most acerbic and cruel interventions against him have been those of his own Conservative colleagues who have been instrumental in his eradication from political life, under the pretext of restoring to Parliament the prestige sullied by the former tenant of 10 Downing Street. It is undoubtedly what has hurt Boris Johnson the most, on his 59th birthday and on the verge of becoming a father for the eighth time. "The report denotes an unquestionable witch-hunt, aimed at consummating my political assassination," he declared as he tried to maintain the supposed imperturbability of British phlegm.
For the Conservative Party, once again, this episode demonstrates once again that none of its members, however prominent, is above it as a fundamental institution in the architecture of the state. In addition, and also as always, it has kept to form. From the current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who preferred to abstain, despite his obvious enmity towards his predecessor, to the former Prime Minister, Theresa May, who favoured condemning Johnson "to restore confidence in our parliamentary democracy", to the Minister for Relations with Parliament, Penny Mordaunt, who called for respect for the opinion of each MP and his or her right not to be harassed by others.
Journalist Boris Johnson will not be short of work, having already signed on as a columnist for the Daily Mail. But he will certainly not be able to obtain exclusive privileges by poking around in the corridors of Parliament. The loss of his access credentials is a symbolic stigma, which will not affect the quality of his articles, but will affect the credibility and trust of his readers, who already know for certain that he is lying.