Last year, as Boris Johnson hung onto power, his party enforcers were publicly accused of blackmailing and intimidating MPs. These accusations were not in the Partygate inquiry’s remit, but if deliberately misleading Parliament ‘goes to the very heart of our democracy’, as the Committee for Privileges says in its report, then so does the fact that our MPs can be bullied, bribed or blackmailed by their party leaderships. Johnson shrugged the claims off: ‘I’ve seen no evidence, heard no evidence, to support any of those allegations.’ But the lack of any inquiry and subsequent slamming of doors are symptomatic of a party control system that sits at the heart of British politics but is rarely discussed: the whip.
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