Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament over ’partygate’ during Covid lockdown, committee report finds

After a year-long investigation, a committee of lawmakers has said that former British prime minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled parliament about illegal parties held at his Downing Street office during Covid-19 lockdowns. 

The Commons Privileges Committee released its final report into the Partygate scandal days after Johnson, 58, resigned from Parliament as a MP, accusing the members of the committee of a "witch hunt" against him.

Also Read: Boris Johnson's surprise resignation 'triggers' immediate by-election'. What this means for PM Sunak and Tories

Finding him in breach of the Commons rules, the committee was also highly critical of his attacks on its integrity and recommended a suspension of 90 days from Parliament had he not resigned.

While a condemning indictment of the former prime minister’s conduct, the recommendation is largely symbolic because Johnson angrily quit as a lawmaker on Friday after the committee informed him of its conclusions.

“We have concluded above that in deliberately misleading the House, Mr Johnson committed a serious contempt," the committee's report said. “The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the Prime Minister, the most senior member of the government. There is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House.''

The committee also said Johnson should not be granted a pass to Parliament’s grounds.

Johnson described the committee as a ‘kangaroo court’ that conducted a ‘witch hunt’ to drive him out of Parliament. A majority of the panel’s seven members come from Johnson’s Conservative Party.

Reacting on the report, Johnson said, “The committee now says that I deliberately misled the House, and at the moment I spoke I was consciously concealing from the House my knowledge of illicit events."

“This is rubbish. It is a lie. In order to reach this deranged conclusion, the Committee is obliged to say a series of things that are patently absurd, or contradicted by the facts," he said.

The full House of Commons will now debate the committee’s report and decide whether it concurs with the panel’s findings and recommended sanctions. On Friday, Johnson angrily as lawmaker on after the committee informed him in advance that he would be sanctioned.

All you need to know about the ‘Partygate scandal’

The ‘partygate’ scandal brought about the downfall of politician Boris Johnson as a Prime Minister and as an MP is a political scandal in the United Kingdom about parties and other gatherings of government and Conservative Party staff held during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when public health restrictions prohibited most gatherings.

Revelations of the booze-fueled gatherings, which took place at a time when millions were prohibited from seeing loved ones or even attending family funerals, angered many Britons and added to a string of ethics scandals that spelled Johnson’s downfall. Johnson resigned as prime minister in July 2022 after a mass exodus of government officials protesting his leadership.

Last year, Johnson and his wife, Carrie, were fined by the Metropolitan Police for breaching Covid-19 laws at a birthday party for Johnson in June 2020 in his Downing Street residence and office. Current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was also among dozens of people issued with fixed-penalty notices for a series of office parties and “wine time Fridays” in 2020 and 2021 across government buildings.

Johnson has acknowledged misleading lawmakers when he assured them that no rules had been broken, but he insisted he didn’t do so deliberately.

In March he told the committee he ‘honestly believed’ the five gatherings he attended, including a send-off for a staffer and his own surprise birthday party, were ‘lawful work gatherings’ intended to boost morale among overworked staff members coping with a deadly pandemic.

(With inputs from AP)