Boris Johnson misled parliament over Covid Lockdown parties, report says

Boris Johnson misled UK lawmakers over lockdown-breaking parties at Downing Street, the prime minister’s residence and office, during the Covid-19 pandemic, a powerful committee concluded Thursday, making public the findings prompting the angry resignation from Mr Johnson from Parliament last week.

The lengthy document, produced by the House of Commons Privilege Committee, offered a damning judgment on Mr Johnson’s conduct, honesty and integrity, concluding that his conduct was willful and that he had committed “a grave disregard” for the House.

“We came to believe that some of Mr Johnson’s denials and statements were so insincere that they were in their nature deliberate attempts to mislead the committee and the House, while others showed deliberation due to the frequency with which he closed his mind for the truth,” the report said.

Mr Johnson was sent a draft of the report last week and promptly resigned from the House of Commons, characterizing the committee investigating him as a “kangaroo court” bent on a politically motivated witch hunt against him. In fact, most of its members are from the Conservative Party, which Mr Johnson led until last year, and two are prominent supporters of Brexit, his flagship policy.

The Privileges Committee, which oversees some internal parliamentary affairs, had the power to recommend an adjournment of parliament that might have forced Mr Johnson into an election to retain his seat. Faced with that uncertainty-laden prospect, Mr. Johnson rather than risk his electoral record.

But in denouncing the committee, Mr Johnson only seemed to have hardened its judgment. Members have been given extra security following comments from the former prime minister and his supporters questioning their impartiality.

In light of Mr Johnson’s response, the committee recommended that the former prime minister have his parliamentary pass revoked, which would prevent him from visiting Parliament as he normally would. Had he remained a legislator, the committee would have recommended a 90-day ban by parliament – a severe penalty that has been called into question by Mr Johnson’s resignation.

The document released on Thursday examined in detail the veracity of Mr Johnson’s account of how he and his senior aides behaved during the pandemic. Even as rumors circulated of anti-rule partying and social mixing, Mr Johnson told Parliament he had been given assurances that all lockdown rules were being adhered to in Downing Street.

But in the end, Mr Johnson became the first sitting prime minister to be fined by police for breaking the law. More revelations emerged and the ‘partygate’ scandal became one of many that contributed to his resignation as prime minister last year under pressure.

The issue at stake before the committee was not the breaking of the rules, but the way Mr Johnson had denied it. Lawmakers view failure to tell the truth to parliament as such a serious matter because without accurate information from ministers they cannot effectively hold the executive to account – an important part of their job.

Appearing before the committee in March, Mr Johnson acknowledged he had made misleading statements in parliament when he previously assured lawmakers there had been no breach of lockdown rules. But he denies that he knowingly made incorrect statements. “I’m here to tell you, hand on heart, that I have not lied to the House,” he said at the time. “When those statements were made, they were made in good faith based on what I honestly knew and believed at the time.”

Still, Mr Johnson accepted that he could not recall receiving specific assurances from any of his senior officials that lockdown rules and guidelines had been followed at all times in Downing Street.

Instead, he quoted the advice of two political aides, prompting the committee’s chairman, Harriet Harman, to ask Mr Johnson if he had relied on “wafer-thin” reassurances.

He also rejected an accusation that he had been reckless in his statements. In doing so, he may have closed a possible route for the committee to recommend a lesser sentence to him, one that would have allowed him to remain in parliament without the risk of an election.

Since leaving Downing Street last year, Mr Johnson has made little secret of wanting his old job back and, announcing his resignation from parliament on Friday, added that he would be leaving the House of Commons “for the time being”. Without a seat, a political comeback – which seems unlikely anyway – would be impossible.

But his latest setback has revealed the limits of his support among conservative lawmakers, with relatively few of them rallying behind him.

Mr Sunak’s resignation from Mr Johnson’s cabinet last year helped accelerate his exit from Downing Street, and this week tension exploded between the two in a public split over the seemingly esoteric issue of nominations for the House of Lords, the unelected second chamber of Parliament. .

Outgoing Prime Ministers have the right to nominate candidates for a place in the Lords, known as the peerage, but candidates must resign their seat in the House of Commons if they hold it. When, after months of postponement, Mr Johnson’s nominees were vetted, three of them pledged not to do so, feeling they could remain in the House of Commons until the next General Election, effectively postponing their peerage.

The issue was discussed at a recent meeting between Mr Sunak and Mr Johnson, but they came away with differing views on what was agreed. As a result, the three lawmakers, including Nadine Dorries, a former cabinet minister and staunch ally of Mr Johnson, were omitted from the list that was eventually approved.

Asked about Monday’s episode, Mr Sunak suggested Mr Johnson would have wanted him to bend the rules on nominations or – as he put it – “do something that I was not prepared to do.” Mr Johnson responded hours later with a statement saying: “Rishi Sunak is talking nonsense.”