Rishi Sunak facing potentially acrimonious vote on Boris Johnson partygate report
Rishi Sunak is facing a potentially acrimonious vote on the Boris Johnson partygate report at the start of next week.
A debate and vote on the report, published by the House of Commons Privileges Committee on Thursday, will take place on Monday – Mr Johnson‘s 59th birthday.
But it will not be a gathering Mr Johnson will get to take part in, as he has now officially left the House of Commons.
Partygate report: The key findings of privileges committee that sealed Boris Johnson’s fate
There may, however, be a chance for some of his loyal supporters to voice their support for the former prime minister.
Those who stuck with Mr Johnson to the end – many of whom were subsequently honoured – are sanguine about what Monday’s result will be.
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg told Sky News: “Inevitably, Boris will lose the vote because you have the whole of the Opposition against him… you also have the Boris haters in the Conservative Party.”
It could be that Sir Jacob, alongside Nadine Dorries, might decide to voice their support for their former leader in the House.
MPs will also vote on whether Mr Johnson should be stripped of his access to the Palace of Westminster – although allies of the former prime minister suggest he could regain access if he were to successfully stand in another constituency.
While the motion to be voted on is simply worded – “that this House approves the Fifth Report from the Committee of Privileges” – the answer over which way to vote will be complicated for many Tory MPs.
Mr Johnson is popular with many in the Conservative Party membership, so opposing him will be a headache with associations.
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Boris Johnson ‘is not defeated’
The notably unennobled Ms Dorries tweeted: “Any Conservative MP who would vote for this report is fundamentally not a Conservative and will be held to account by members and the public. Deselections may follow. It’s serious.”
Meanwhile, the former prime minister’s lack of popularity with the rest of the electorate makes supporting him equally unappealing.
YouGov polling of 3,031 adults in the UK found that only 15% of those asked thought the recommended 90-day suspension for Mr Johnson was too harsh.
So it may come as a relief to know that Downing Street has put them on a one-line whip – meaning turning up in Westminster is not compulsory.
And the vote itself is likely to be free, so no one on the government benches will be told how they have to cast their ballots.
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Many eyes will be looking at the way Mr Sunak – and other government ministers – vote on a report which excoriated their former leader and a government of which many were part.
Downing Street refused to be drawn on how the prime minister will vote when asked on Thursday evening.
“He intends to take the time to fully consider the report,” Mr Sunak’s spokesman said.
Conservative Penny Mordaunt, who as leader of the House of Commons announced the vote, said: “My advice to all MPs, having had the committee carry out the work we asked them to do, is to read the report, is to make their own judgments about it and take the task that is our privilege to do seriously and soberly, and members should use their own judgment on that.”
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She added: “These are difficult matters for the House. We have to look at the evidence, we have to look at the report, but we’re talking about people who are friends and colleagues. It will be a painful process and a sad process for all of us, the task that we face on Monday.
“But all of us must do what we think is right, and others must leave us alone to do so.”
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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