Rees-Mogg ‘should quit’ over Paterson saga
MP Jacob Rees-Mogg “should resign” as the Leader of the House of Commons in the wake of last week’s furore over Owen Paterson, it’s been claimed.
Chairman of the Commons Standards Committee MP Chris Bryant said Mr Rees-Mogg’s position had become “untenable” in the backlash following the botched attempt to change the system to spare Mr Paterson’s ban.
Mr Rees-Mogg, whose North East Somerset constituency runs from Whitchurch and Keynsham on the edge of Bristol to Midsomer Norton and Radstock to the south, has been a controversial figure as Leader of the House in the past couple of years.
Speaking to the i newspaper, Mr Bryant said Mr Rees-Mogg should quit as Leader of the House because he’d lost the respect of MPs.
“I personally think the Leader of the House’s position has become untenable,” said Mr Bryant.
“He has created a crisis for Parliament by standing out and talking for 45 minutes in favour of a motion that was the direct, polar opposite of the rule of law. A Conservative MP has also told me that the ‘knobs’ of the party told the ‘oiks’ what to do, and the ‘knobs’ don’t necessarily have the best political antennae.
“And I think Jacob Rees-Mogg wanted to deliver an outcome because of a personal friendship.”
Asked how the Tories got themselves into the mess the Labour MP said: “A number have felt bruised by the process.
“I guess including the Prime Minister.”
Mr Rees-Mogg was one of the leaders in the attempt to halt the disciplinary process being enacted upon fellow Tory MP Owen Paterson, as punishment for lobbying on behalf of companies that paid him £100,000 a year.
That’s illegal under Houses of Parliament rules, and the Standards Committee that Mr Bryant chairs upheld a complaint against the Tory MP for North Shropshire.
But instead of going through with that process of suspending the MP for 30 days, Mr Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson told his MPs to vote for an amendment, brought by fellow Tory MP Andrea Leadsom, to put that punishment on hold and set up a new committee and way of dealing with the Paterson case, and other cases, in the future.
Some Tory MPs rebelled against that, but not enough, and it passed – only for the Prime Minister to U-turn the following morning in the face of a public backlash.
That U-turn didn’t come quickly enough for Mr Paterson, however, who resigned as an MP in the face of the crisis.
Mr Bryant also revealed that Kathryn Stone, the independent standards commissioner, has had to be given additional security after Tory MPs made speeches attacking her.
Rees-Mogg announced ministers would seek “cross-party” changes to the system after acknowledging a “certain amount of controversy”.
Speaking on Thursday, he also said the “link needs to be broken” between reforms and the case of Mr Paterson.