hu 15 June 2023:
UK parliamentary committee found on Thursday that Boris Johnson, the former prime minister who was in office during the pandemic, deliberately misled parliament regarding lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street.
After a yearlong investigation, the committee said Johnson would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for “repeated” contempt of parliament had he not angrily resigned last week.
Johnson, 58, called the report a “protracted political assassination”.
The parties in 2020 and 2021, which were reportedly boozy affairs and in contravention of social distancing measures in place at the time, undermined his credibility and contributed to his downfall, the committee of lawmakers said.
BORIS JOHNSON SAYS SORRY AFTER ‘PARTYGATE’ SCANDAL SLAMS ‘FAILURES OF LEADERSHIP’
A majority of the panel’s seven members of the House of Commons Privileges Committee come from Johnson’s Conservative Party.
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.
The committee’s long-awaited, 106-page report was even more critical than expected, particularly in relation to the sanctions it would have recommended.
“We have concluded above that in deliberately misleading the House, Mr Johnson committed a serious contempt. 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 said.
The so-called “partygate” scandal also saw Johnson, his wife Carrie and dozens of government officials fined by police for breaking the social distancing laws that the government had set for the public to curtail the spread of COVID-19.
The committee recommended that Johnson not be given a former member’s pass because he is no longer a member, according to its report.
Johnson acknowledged deceiving Congress when he asserted there had been no rule violations, but he insisted he had not done so on purpose.
Public anger over the gatherings was especially felt by the families of those who died from the virus.
The issue was just one of many factors that played a role in Johnson’s resignation as prime minister in July due to a ministerial rebellion.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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