He would have been suspended for 90 days
Boris Johnson committed “repeated contempts” of Parliament with his partygate denials that merited a 90-day suspension, a cross-party investigation has found.
Finding Boris Johnson lied to MPs with his partygate denials, the Privileges Committee wrote: “We conclude that when he told the House and this Committee that the rules and guidance were being complied with, his own knowledge was such that he deliberately misled the House and this committee.” “Mr Johnson’s conduct in making this statement is in itself a very serious contempt,” the report said.
The committee said these included: Deliberately misleading the House, deliberately misleading the committee, breaching confidence, “impugning the committee and thereby undermining the democratic process of the House” and “being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the committee”.The Privileges Committee said Boris Johnson’s attack of its work amounts to “an attack on our democratic institutions”.
If it was at least 10 days and approved by the Commons, then a by-election in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency could have been triggered. But Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said this was a “typical distraction tactic” from the ex-premier “that doesn’t change the fact he broke the law and lied about it”.
Home Office minister Chris Philp argued the MPs, including Tory former Cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg who branded it a “kangaroo court”, should not be censured. To be frank, when I first heard these warnings, I was incredulous. When it was first proposed that there should be such an inquiry by this committee, I thought it was just some time-wasting procedural stunt by the Labour party.
So when on Dec 1 2021 I told the House of Commons that “the guidance was followed completely” I meant it. It wasn’t just what I thought: it’s what we all thought – that we were following the rules and following the guidance completely – notwithstanding the difficulties of maintaining social distancing at all times.
This is transparently wrong. I believed, correctly, that these events were reasonably necessary for work purposes. We were managing a pandemic. We had hundreds of staff engaged in what was sometimes a round-the-clock struggle against Covid. Their morale mattered for that fight. It was important for me to thank them.
Their argument can be boiled down to: “Look at this picture – that’s Boris Johnson with a glass in his hand. He must have known that the event was illegal. Therefore he lied.” Why was it illegal for me to thank staff and legal for Sir Bernard to attend his wife’s birthday party? The committee concedes that the guidance permitted social distancing of less than one metre where there was no alternative – though they refuse to take account of all the other mitigations – including regular testing – that we put in place.
First, the committee has totally ignored the general testimony about that evening, which is that people were working throughout, even if some had been drinking at their desks. How on earth do these clairvoyants know exactly what was going on at 21.58?
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