Boris Johnson has attempted to draw Rishi Sunak deeper into the Partygate scandal by suggesting that if Covid rules had been broken in Downing Street, then it should have been “obvious” to the current prime minister, too.
As he began his lengthy evidence session in front of the privileges committee, which is investigating whether he deliberately misled MPs over lockdown gatherings, Johnson rejected suggestions he should have been aware.
“If it was obvious to me these events were contrary to the guidance and the rules, it must have been equally obvious to dozens of others, including the most senior officials in the government, most of them like me responsible for drawing up the rules,” he told MPs. And it must have been obvious to others in the building, including the current prime minister.”
Sunak, who was chancellor at the time, regularly attended No 10 for meetings throughout the pandemic. He was fined by the Metropolitan police over his attendance at Johnson’s birthday party in the cabinet room at No 10 on 19 June 2021, for which his predecessor also received a fixed-penalty notice. Downing Street said the prime minister would not be watching the testimony.
Johnson told MPs it was “staggeringly implausible” to suggest he would have allowed the gatherings to have been pictured by the official No 10 photographer, and there was a “near-universal belief” in the building that rules and guidance were being complied with.
However, later in the hearing, he suggested he had in fact been aware that guidance to mitigate the spread of Covid in No 10 was not properly enforced. “I wouldn’t wish to say it was perfectly implemented,” he said. “This was guidance and I’m not going to pretend that it was enforced rigidly.”
In a bullish opening statement, Johnson said “hand on heart” that he did not lie to the House of Commons over Partygate, adding: “When those statements were made, they were made in good faith and on the basis on what I honestly knew and believed at the time.”
Johnson faces a battle for his political future as he tries to convince the cross-party committee of MPs he misled the House of Commons only unintentionally over lockdown events in Downing Street.
He argued that evidence gathered from No 10 officials “conclusively” showed that he did not deliberately mislead parliament, as he was reassured “repeatedly” by No 10 aides that no rules were broken.
He claimed he had been told “a couple of times” by the senior civil servant Sue Gray, who conducted the inquiry into the Partygate affair, that she did not believe his behaviour had met the criminal threshold.
Source: BBC
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