Ex-UK PM Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament over Covid lockdown breaches, inquiry finds

London, Jun 15 (PTI) Former British prime minister Boris Johnson deliberately and repeatedly misled Parliament when he denied knowledge of Covid-19 law-breaching parties in Downing Street, a cross-party parliamentary panel said on Thursday in its damning report into the Partygate scandal.

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.

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.

“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,” the Privileges Committee report said, in a historic admonishment of a former premier.

“Although Mr Johnson’s resignation as an MP renders it impossible for a sanction of suspension to be imposed, we draw attention to the fact that before the events of Friday 9 June we had provisionally agreed to recommend a suspension long enough to engage the provisions of the Recall of MPs Act,” it says, with reference to Johnson’s resignation.

The committee notes that there is no precedent for a British Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House of Commons and also that Johnson misled it on an issue of the “greatest importance to the House and to the public, and did so repeatedly”.

They accuse Johnson of committing further contempt in his attacks on the due parliamentary process with deprecated terms such as “witch hunt” and “kangaroo court”.

“We put on record that if he had not resigned his seat, we would have recommended that he be suspended from the service of the House for 90 days for repeated contempts and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process, by Deliberately misleading the House; Deliberately misleading the Committee; Breaching confidence; Impugning the Committee and thereby undermining the democratic process of the House; Being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee,” the report concludes.

In light of Johnson’s resignation as an MP, the committee has recommended that he should not be granted a former member’s pass – which would have allowed him limited access to Parliament, including for lunches and to see former colleagues.

The sanctions recommended in the report will have to be voted on by MPs.

British lawmakers will debate the Privileges Committee report into Johnson’s conduct on Monday, Commons leader Penny Mordaunt has said.

The motion will be “voteable, it will be amendable and it is House business and so I am expecting a free vote”, Mordaunt said.

“These are difficult matters for the House, we have to look at the evidence, we have to look at the report,” she added.

Meanwhile, Johnson issued another strongly-worded statement in response, saying it was a “dreadful day” for democracy. He also dismissed the report as a “political assassination”.

“This is a dreadful day for MPs and for democracy. This decision means that no MP is free from vendetta, or expulsion on trumped-up charges by a tiny minority who want to see him or her gone from the Commons.

“I do not have the slightest contempt for Parliament, or for the important work that should be done by the Privileges Committee,” he said.

The former prime minister, whose exit from 10 Downing Street last year had been hastened by the Partygate scandal, repeatedly denied Covid-19 lockdown rules were broken within government quarters when asked in the Commons.

In March, the House of Commons Privileges Committee published a summary of its findings and called in Johnson to give oral evidence before decisively concluding whether he knowingly misled Parliament and submitting its complete findings to Parliament.

Last week, Johnson resigned as Conservative Party MP after receiving the draft findings of the final report, a move which will trigger a by-election in his London constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

Johnson was prime minister from July 2019 until September 2022 and has been an MP since 2001 – although not continuously. He has also served as the Mayor of London between 2008 and 2016.