Scores of Tories could vote with their feet by skipping the crunch debate on the report that found Boris Johnson lied to Parliament.

Westminster is bracing for a showdown on the Privileges Committee’s brutal findings into the ex-PM on Monday.

Mr Johnson has slammed the conclusions as ‘tripe’ and some of his allies are vowing to oppose them when they come to the House.   

However, the combination of government neutrality and backing from Opposition parties mean there is no doubt that the motion will be approved. 

Conservative whips have told MPs there will be a one-line whip, meaning no sanction for missing the vote. 

Downing Street declined to say whether Rishi Sunak would attend but senior Tories expect him to find he has other engagements. A Conservative source said ‘a majority’ of the party’s MPs would abstain.

Usually the results of conduct probes are ‘nodded through’ the House, and as Mr Johnson has already quit the proposed 90-day suspension cannot take effect. However, the committee has called for Mr Johnson to be banned from holding the Parliamentary pass usually granted to ex-MPs.  

Allies of Mr Johnson could try to amend the motion, but there is also the threat that Opposition MPs will attempt to strengthen the sanctions. 

The Liberal Democrats yesterday called for Mr Johnson to lose the £115,000-a-year allowance granted to former PMs to help deal with issues arising from their time in office. 

The fallout from the report may trigger a fresh round of Tory bloodletting that upsets Rishi Sunak’s efforts to restore calm to the party ahead of an election expected next year. Nadine Dorries warned that Conservative MPs could even face deselection by angry local parties if they back the committee’s findings in a Commons vote on Monday night.

‘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,’ she said. ‘Deselections may follow.’

The Conservative Democratic Organisation said it had been inundated with messages from activists. Its chairman, former MEP David Campbell-Bannerman, said: ‘This is just the latest part of an anti-democratic attempt to destroy Boris Johnson. If Conservative MPs choose to endorse it then they should pay a price.

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‘We have been inundated with calls from party members complaining of a stitch-up. We are happy to assist them if they want advice and help in getting rid of an MP.’

Neil McCafferty, leader of the Boston Conservatives branch in Lincolnshire, said: ‘The way the privileges committee has treated him is absolutely ridiculous and obscene.

‘A 90-day suspension – that’s totally silly and a complete over-reaction. You can see that the whole thing’s political contrived and biased.’

Foreign Office minister Zac Goldsmith described the sanctions against Mr Johnson, which far outstrip the ten-day suspension needed to trigger a by-election, as ‘obviously ridiculous and vindictive’.

Confirming the vote yesterday, Commons leader Penny Mordaunt urged Tory activists not to try to pressure their MPs to back Mr Johnson. 

‘It will be a painful process and a sad process for all of us, but we all must do what we think is right, and others must leave us alone to do so,’ she said.

Allies of Mr Johnson believe the ‘extreme’ findings of the report could make him a Tory ‘martyr’ and pave the way to a return one day. But he is not expected to return to Parliament before the next election.

Mr Johnson said the committee had ‘found not a shred of evidence’ and it was ‘complete tripe’ to suggest he knew rules were being broken.

‘This report is a charade,’ he said. ‘I was wrong to believe in the committee or its good faith. The terrible truth is that it is not I who has twisted the truth to suit my purposes. It is Harriet Harman and her committee.’

He denied treating Parliament with contempt and said the ‘anti-democratic’ report was designed to be ‘the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination’.

‘It is for the people of this country to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman,’ he insisted.

Mr Johnson accused the committee of ‘rank hypocrisy’, noting that senior member Sir Bernard Jenkin was reported to have attended a lockdown drinks party for his wife’s birthday.

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk