MINISTERS and advisors connected to 10 Downing Street have been accused of trying to blackmail Conservative MPs into backing Boris Johnson.
Conservative MP William Wragg, the Chair of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee made the allegations this morning ahead of a Committee meeting in the House of Commons.
Mr Wragg, a firm Brexiter who supported Mr Johnson for the party leadership in 2019, accused whips, ministers, and others of threatening to withdraw public funding from members’ constituencies and plant stories in the press against them unless they played ball.
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Mr Wragg heads is the principal select committee to which Cabinet Office ministers are accountable.
Mr Wragg called on MPs the PM’s backers try to blackmail to report the incidents to the Speaker of the House of Commons or the Metropolitan Police.
While the Met Police is unlikely to take any interest in attempts to strongarm MPs by party whips in Westminster, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, is likely to take a hard line and ask for details of the allegations and explanations for them very soon.
The revelations add to the stench of moral rot at the heart of Boris Johnson’s government.
If anyone was in any doubt about the government’s character before the latest allegations were made, they are in no doubt now.
