Peter Bone, Tory backbencher and Tory MP, has revealed that vandals attacked his constituency office in response to his support for Owen Paterson’s lobbying shame campaign.
As he made the admission in today’s Commons, the Wellingborough MP sound shaken.
Mr Bone voted in favor of Andrea Leadsom’s successful amendment last night, which stalled Mr Paterson’s 30-day suspension for acting like a paid lobbyist and opened the door to a new corruption regimen.
He was also among the 58 MPs who added their names to her amendment. This shows the depth of their support and their support for Mr Paterson.
But after Jacob Rees-Mogg this morning announced a Government U-turn, Mr Bone told MPs: ‘This morning my office was vandalised because of the way I voted last night. This puts my staff in danger and is not the right way for it to happen.
As he made the admission in today’s Commons, the Wellingborough MP sound shaken.
Mr Bone voted in favor of Andrea Leadsom’s successful amendment last night, which stalled Mr Paterson’s 30-day suspension for acting like a paid lobbyist and opened the door to a new corruption regimen.
“We could have strong disagreements, but some of us should recall what happened to Sir David Amess, and perhaps our language needs be a little more temperate.
Boris Johnson had previously made an extraordinary U-turn after facing overwhelming protests.
Commons Leader Mr Rees-Mogg announced the government has dropped plans for a retrospective overhaul of sleaze rules after a huge backlash at the ‘politically-motivated’ decision.
This means that a motion to suspend Mr Paterson for 30 jours for violating lobbying rules – as recommended by the cross party standards committee – is now being brought back before the House.
The PM had defied convention by ordering his party not to support the conclusions of the standards watchdog.
However, the amendment calling for a reform to the sleaze laws and ‘pausing the process’ was only narrowly approved last night. Angela Richardson was then fired after a major revolt.
The block had caused chaos and left the existing system for regulating MPs’ conduct in ruins. Opposition parties also pledged to boycott the government’s plans to make a new one.
Mr Paterson, Tory MP for North Shropshire, was found to have committed an ‘egregious’ breach of standards rules by directly advocating for two companies from which he pocketed some £500,000. He has not denied any wrongdoing and said he would do it again. He also called for Kathryn Stone, standards commissioner, to resign. This was supported by Kwasi Kwarteng, Business Secretary, just hours before the volte.
Addressing MPs today, Mr Rees Mogg stated that it was important for standards to be set in the House on a cross-party basis.
“The House voted very clearly yesterday in order to show its concern about the process of handling these complains and that it would like an appellations system. However, the change would have to be made on a cross party basis. That is clearly not the case.
“While there is a strong feeling on both sides that there is a need to have an appeals process, there is also a strong feeling that it should not be based solely on one case or apply retroactively.
“I fear that last night’s debate has conflated an individual case and the general concern. This link must be broken.
“I and others will therefore be looking to work cross-party to improve our system in future cases.
“We will make more detailed proposals after there have been cross-party talks.”
MailOnline was told by a government source that Mr Paterson would be suspended.