Why Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg are in trouble

Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg are in trouble, thanks to partygate.

No, they have not been spotted living it up while people were in lockdown, but the commons committee that investigated Boris Johnson and found he misled parliament is annoyed with the criticism aimed by the pair at the committee.

In a special report it has claimed there was a "sustained attempt" to "undermine" its credibility and said Johnson's allies criticism of their work could make it "impossible" for similarly sensitive inquiries to be held in future.

The cross-party committee found Johnson had deliberately misled parliament over lockdown parties in government and that he should have been suspended for 90 days had he remained an MP, rather than preemptively resigning and branding the committee a "kangaroo court".

Several allies also criticised the committee, including backbench MP Brendan Clarke-Smith, who called its conclusions "spiteful, vindictive and overreaching".

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Rees-Mogg described the proposed 90-day sanction as "vindictive", while Dorries described the committee's inquiry as a "witch-hunt".

At a debate on the committee's report after it was published, Rees-Mogg said it was "perfectly reasonable" for MPs to challenge the findings of committees.

"For some reason, the Privileges Committee thinks it is in communist China and that we must kowtow," he added.

And so, the report described a “coordinated campaign of interference” which put “improper pressure” on the committee as it investigated the ex-PM, adding: “We have not catalogued every tweet or TV appearance, but have set out in an annex to this report some of the most disturbing examples of the coordinated campaign to interfere with the work of the Committee.”

It highlighted remarks by Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries, Andrea Jenkyns, Priti Patel, Michael Fabricant, Mark Jenkinson, Zac Goldsmith and Brendan Clarke-Smith.

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