New Delhi: Trouble mounts for the former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he faces a battle for the future in Parliament after a cross-party committee found significant evidence that he misled the MPs over lockdown parties. According to the new evidence found during the inquiry, Johnson and his aides certainly knew that they were breaching the UK government’s rules and guidelines at that time, as reported by The Guardian.
“The evidence strongly suggests that breaches of guidance would have been obvious to Mr Johnson at the time he was at the gatherings,” the report said as quoted by CNN.
According to the damning report one witness said that Johnson, who was forced out as UK PM last year following the partygate scandal, told a packed No 10 gathering in November 2020, when strict Covid rules were in force, that, “this is probably the most unsocially distanced gathering in the UK right now”, as reported by The Guardian.
Other fresh evidence that came to the fore includes a message from a No 10 official in April 2021, saying a colleague was “worried about leaks of PM having a piss-up – and to be fair I don’t think it’s unwarranted”, The Guardian reported.
Last year, Johnson became the first sitting UK prime minister to be found guilty of breaking the law after the Metropolitan police issued a fine on him for attending one of the gatherings.
The details emerged in a report by the Commons privileges committee. It is a committee of a seven-strong group of MPs including four from the Conservative party. The committee was tasked with discovering whether Johnson misled parliament in denying any wrongdoing, and then if this was deliberate, The Guardian reported. It is only an interim report to give notice of lines to Johnson before he testifies this month.
However, a formal finding about Johnson that he deliberately misled the parliament could lead to his suspension. According to the rules, an exclusion of 14 days or longer would mean that the constituents of the former UK PM could seek a recall petition to oust him as their MP. “There is evidence that the House of Commons may have been misled in the following ways, which the committee will explore,” the report said citing examples backed up by lengthy footnotes, as reported by The Guardian.
The MPs of the Conservative party sought to discredit the report and responded with immediate fightback. After getting support from the MPs Johnson said it was “surreal to discover that the committee proposes to rely on evidence culled and orchestrated by Sue Gray, who has just been appointed chief of staff to the leader of the Labour party”, as quoted by The Guardian. Sue Gray a senior cabinet official who led an internal inquiry into the events in May last year, quit on Thursday, prompting accusations from Johnson’s supporters that her report which saw the acceptance from the former PM could not be trusted now.
However, a Privileges committee spokesperson dismissed Johnson’s arguments and said that the findings were “not based on the Sue Gray report” but on witness accounts and evidence supplied by the government, according to The Guardian.