Right-wing Brexiteer Peter Bone has been made a government minister in one of the most unlikely appointments Westminster has seen in recent years.
The MP was made deputy leader of the House of Commons – a position that has been vacant since 2019 – as “caretaker” prime minister Boris Johnson backfilled his administration after nearly 60 frontbenchers quit this week.
Bone, MP for Wellingborough since 2005, has been one of most notorious backbenchers for many years, and often a thorn in the side to his own party leaders.
But this week he was four-square behind Johnson as the PM faced a mounting Tory backlash over his handling of the Chris Pincher row – which ultimately brought him down.
Bone slammed opposition MPs for attempts to “bash Boris”, and insisted voters were more concerned about incoming tax cuts than they are about the behaviour of an MP who was accused of groping.
The supportive intervention from Bone in the Commons chamber stood out so much that even speaker Lindsay Hoyle remarked that he was a “lone batter” for the government.
An unashamed eurosceptic, Bone had described Ukip as a “good thing for British politics”.
He wrote in 2014, when David Cameron was leader: “Do I think Ukip has been a good thing for British politics? Yes, definitely yes. It has filled a vacuum on the right of British politics because the Conservatives have spent too much time worrying about the centre ground, not the common ground.”
He also called the idea of introducing same-sex marriage “completely nuts”.
In 2012, the MP urged the Church of England to block the coalition government plans for same-sex weddings in a religious setting.
“So far as the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and many other faith groups are concerned, marriage is a union between one man and one woman,” he said.
British Politics Twitter couldn’t quite believe that Bone, who often asks questions in the Commons on behalf of his wife “Mrs Bone”, was now on the front bench.
“There’s no depths satire can’t reach,” said Labour MP Chris Bryant.