Ian Blackford congratulated after being booted out of Parliament for saying Johnson 'misled the House' | indy100

SNP’s Ian Blackford ejected from parliament for saying Boris Johnson misled MPs

The Independent

Ian Blackford was congratulated after being booted from the House of Commons on Monday for saying the prime minister “wilfully misled” MPs over the Downing Street party allegations.

Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle asked the SNP Westminster leader to withdraw the remark that Johnson “misled the House” several times, but Blackford refused and doubled down.

On one of the occasions, Sir Lindsay asked him to withdraw his comment and replace it with “inadvertently”, instead of just “misled the House”. Blackford responded: “It’s not my fault if the prime minister can’t be trusted to tell the truth.”

Amid raucous shouting from the Tory benches, the Speaker said: “Under the power given to me by standing order number 43 I order the honourable member to withdraw immediately from the House.”

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Blackford walked out of the chamber before the Speaker had finished, with Sir Lindsay noting: “It’s all right, we don’t need to bother.”

As Blackford walked out of the House of Commons, he was greeted by anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray.

Ian Blackford as he leaves Parliament after being removed for calling Johnson a liar. #Partygatepic.twitter.com/lYEBhZmB9x
— Steve Bray "Viva la revolution" (@Steve Bray "Viva la revolution") 1643645159

“Well done, Ian. Fantastic,” Bray said as Blackford approached the gates. Blackford smiled and shook Bray’s hand.

Bray asked what he said in the House, to which Blackford replied: “I said he misled the House and he was a liar”.

“Absolutely the truth. You should not be removed for that, Ian,” Bray said.

The praise spilled out across social media, too:

Quite ridiculous that parliamentary convention doesn't allow MPs to call the biggest liar in British politics a liar. Which is what Boris Johnson is. He should be removed not Ian Blackford.
— Otto English (@Otto English) 1643644802

Good on you Ian Blackford.
— Emma Kennedy\ud83d\udc99 (@Emma Kennedy\ud83d\udc99) 1643644483

I stand with Ian Blackford - courageous and truth speaker -what a man.
— shirley anne smith \ud83d\udc99 #FBPE #JohnsonOut (@shirley anne smith \ud83d\udc99 #FBPE #JohnsonOut) 1643645469

Ian Blackford is thrown out the Commons for saying the Prime Minister misled the house because the Prime Minister misled the house.
— Alexander Brown (@Alexander Brown) 1643644909

So\u2026\n\nIan Blackford gets thrown out of the Commons for saying Boris Johnson \u201cmisled Parliament\u201d\n\nBut Boris Johnson uses fake news to accuse Keir Starmer of letting \nJimmy Saville off the hook and \n\n\u2026nada\n\nGet in the bin you absolute crook @CommonsSpeaker
— Marina Purkiss (@Marina Purkiss) 1643667059

I stand with Ian Blackford.\n\n#IstandwithIanBlackford
— Kercle \ud83d\udc99 (@Kercle \ud83d\udc99) 1643644605

Good on Ian Blackford for just plainly calling Johnson a liar
— James Felton (@James Felton) 1643644567

I stand shoulder to shoulder with Ian Blackford...what about you?
— Barbara (@Barbara) 1643645172

Earlier, Blackford had said: “So here we have it. The long-awaited Sue Gray report, what a farce.

“It was carefully engineered to be a fact-finding exercise, with no conclusions. Now we find it’s a fact-finding exercise with no facts.

“So let’s talk facts. The prime minister has told the House that all guidance was completely followed, there was no party, Covid rules were followed and that ‘I believed it was a work event’.

“Nobody, nobody believed it then. And nobody, nobody believes you now, prime minister. That is the crux, no ifs, no buts, he has wilfully misled Parliament.”

He doubled down yet more on Twitter last night.

Boris Johnson has repeatedly lied and misled Parliament. Everyone knows it.\n\nIf telling the truth is a punishable offence, then it proves all the more why Scotland needs to escape this corrupt Westminster system.
— Ian Blackford (@Ian Blackford) 1643646385

During an appearance on Good Morning Britain today, he said it was “slightly perverse” it was him who was thrown out of the House of Commons on Monday on the “basis of telling the truth”.

'One of these days the Prime Minister is going to have accept that he's abused the trust that was put in him when he became Prime Minister. He should of gone by now.' \n\nSNP Westminster leader @Ianblackford_MP stands by his comments in Parliament which led to him being kicked out.pic.twitter.com/ukrQe7GHPP
— Good Morning Britain (@Good Morning Britain) 1643700788

He said: “If I had withdrawn what I’d said yesterday in the House of Commons I would have been guilty of doing what the prime minister has done, and that would have been lying to everybody watching.

“One of these days the prime minister is going to have to accept that he has abused the trust that was put in him when he became prime minister. He should have gone by now.

“And this morning, my message to Tory MPs, they’re going to have to do the job because, quite simply, this man is not fit for purpose.

“He’s not fit to be prime minister.”

Additional reporting by PA.

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