BORIS Johnson this morning did a screeching u-turn after Tory fury at his bid to save Owen Paterson from a guilty lobbying verdict.
The PM abandoned plans to change Parliament’s sleaze rules by creating a new Conservative-led committee just hours after ordering his MPs to vote for it.
Labour and the Lib Dems vowed to boycott the new committee that would review the Paterson case – thereby letting the ex-minister off the hook for now.
But many Conservative MPs also broke ranks to blast the PM for protecting Mr Paterson despite him being found guilty of breaking lobbying rules.
In a major climbdown Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg this morning announced the government was going to go back to the drawing board.
He said: “”I fear last night’s debate conflated an individual case with the general concern. This link needs to be broken.
“Therefore I and others will be looking to work on a cross-party basis to achieve improvements in our system for future cases.”
Yesterday the PM wielded his big majority to protect the former Environment Secretary from a 30-day Commons ban handed down by the standards watchdog.
There were shouts from the Labour side of “shame” and “what have you done to this place” as the motion narrowly passed by 250 to 232.
After the vote Mr Paterson said: “After two years of hell, I now have the opportunity to clear my name.”
Mr Paterson was found to have breached rules by using his job as an MP to lobby ministers and officials for two companies that paid him £112,000 as a consultant.
The cross-party standards committee of MPs recommended he be suspended from the Commons for the “egregious case of paid advocacy.”
North Shropshire MP Mr Paterson strongly rejected the ruling – blaming the “torturous” two-year probe for his wife Rose’s suicide – and has fumed that he wasn’t allowed to appeal.
