Liz Truss urges Johnson to ‘stay and fight’ in politics
Liz Truss has urged Boris Johnson to “stay and fight” in politics, arguing it should be up to voters to decide when an MP’s time is up.
The former Prime Minister said she would not “question the integrity” of the Privileges Committee after it concluded Mr Johnson should have a 90 day ban from the Commons, but she said the punishment was harsh.
Speaking on Thursday night to GB News, in her first major TV appearance since being forced out of No 10 last October, Ms Truss said she wanted Mr Johnson to remain in the Conservative Party and in politics: “We have to stay and we have to fight… so I want Boris to stay in fight for his vision.”
Ms Truss criticised Conservative MPs for having ousted Mr Johnson as Prime Minister and party leader last year, saying it was “sowing the seeds of huge problems for our party”.
“I’m a believer in democracy. I know that Boris got a huge mandate, and he got a mandate to get Brexit done, and to change Britain. And people voted for him because he was optimistic about our country’s future. He had a vision.
“So in the first place what I think was wrong was Conservative MPs removing an elected prime minister that so many people have voted for. And I think then sowing the seeds of huge problems for our party.”
Ms Truss said she had not had time to read the Privileges Committee report that was released on Thursday.
“But fundamentally, the people who choose who should be making decisions about who MPs are the voters. And that’s the people we seem to be forgetting,” she added.
Mr Johnson resigned last week as a Conservative MP having been sent the Privileges Committee’s findings. On Monday, MPs will be asked to “approve” the Committee’s recommendations following the damning report – which were that Mr Johnson be denied a pass to enter the Palace of Westminster and that he would have faced a 90-day suspension if he had not quit.
She stopped short of labelling the committee a “kangaroo court” as Mr Johnson did in his resignation statement, but said it had made a “very harsh decision”.
Ms Truss has remained an ally of Mr Johnson’s after succeeding him as prime minister after his ousting by the Conservative party, and after her own resignation following 44 days of her premiership.
When asked whether Mr Johnson could back a political comeback after today’s partygate report, Ms Truss replied: “Never ever write off Boris.”
“That is something that I think is very, very clear and I’m sure we will hear more from him.
Other allies have told i that despite commentators writing him off after the report found that he misled parliament, Johnson would continue to “make waves” in the media by returning to writing – with one ally saying Johnson might eye a “slow rebuild” back to frontline politics.
