Boris Johnson faces a battle for his political future on Wednesday after a dossier setting out his defence to the Partygate scandal raised fresh questions about his knowledge of what was happening in Downing Street during the Covid lockdowns.
Giving evidence before the cross-party privileges committee, Johnson will insist he misled the House of Commons unintentionally and that his assurances to MPs that Covid rules had been followed had been made in “good faith”.
In his 52-page written evidence released ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, Johnson said that he would “never have dreamed” of intentionally misleading the Commons as he underwent final preparations for an intense grilling, which he hopes will exonerate him from claims he lied to parliament.
“I accept that the House of Commons was misled by my statements that the rules and guidance had been followed completely at No 10,” he wrote. “But when the statements were made, they were made in good faith and on the basis of what I honestly knew and believed at the time.”
The stakes for Johnson could not be higher. If the committee decides he “recklessly” misled MPs he faces being suspended from parliament. A suspension of 10 sitting days or more triggers a recall petition, which could lead to a byelection in his west London seat.
Although Johnson’s allies have dismissed the privileges committee inquiry as “a witch-hunt”, many Conservative MPs are dismayed that he has been, in the words of one, “blowing up” Rishi Sunak’s attempts to get the government back on track after a chaotic year.
The prime minister has said he will allow Tory MPs to make decisions “as individuals”, giving them a free vote on any sanctions imposed on Johnson when the committee publishes its final report after Easter, but any vote could threaten to split the party.
The committee, chaired by the veteran Labour MP Harriet Harman, but which has a Conservative majority, said in its interim report that Johnson may have misled parliament on four occasions, and that he and aides almost certainly knew at the time they were breaking rules.
They said the evidence “strongly suggests” breaches of guidance should have been “obvious” to the then prime minister at the time of the gatherings as he drew up the rules and announced them.
In his written evidence, Johnson responded: “If it was ‘obvious’ to me that the rules and guidance were not being followed, it would have been equally obvious to dozens of others who also attended the gatherings I did.” He said most of them did not consider these events to have broken the rules either.
He accepted that his denials to parliament had turned out to be inaccurate but said that he corrected the record at the “earliest opportunity”. It took him six months to do so, after the senior civil servant Sue Gray had published her final report.
Johnson’s defence, prepared by a legal team headed by the barrister Lord Pannick KC, has been funded by the taxpayer at a cost of up to £220,000. His lawyer will be permitted to sit alongside him during the hearing, but not to answer on his behalf.
In the document, he repeatedly pointed the finger of blame at his Downing Street aides. Although he said there was “nothing reckless or unreasonable” about relying on the assurances of his advisers, he accepted “it is clear now, those assurances were wrong”.
He also highlighted what his supporters regard as extenuating circumstances, with officials “working together around the clock to fight Covid” in the “old, cramped London townhouse” of No 10. Critics have pointed out that NHS staff on the frontline of fighting the pandemic got no such special dispensation.
Johnson suggested the committee had no “smoking gun” that indicated he had intentionally misled MPs, writing: “There is not a single document that indicates that I received any warning or advice that any event broke or may have broken the rules of guidance.”
The only exception, he said, was the assertions of his “discredited” former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, which were not supported by any documentation, and should be ignored because Cummings had done everything possible to remove him from power.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Cummings said the former prime minister would try to “lie his way to safety” during the hearing, indicating that he did know that the parties at No 10 were in breach of the rules.
Johnson criticised the “partisan tone and content” of the interim report, and accused the committee of going beyond its “remit” to consider breaches of guidance as well as law, arguing this was “obviously inappropriate, impermissible, and unfair”.
The committee has published four previously unseen photographs of Downing Street gatherings featuring bottles of alcohol, concluding there had been a “culture of drinking” that had persisted even as restrictions were put in place. It is expected to publish more evidence on Wednesday morning.
In his defence, Johnson argued that it was “implausible” he would have allowed the official photographer to take pictures of events at No 10, which show staff breaching social distancing rules, if he felt they were evidence of law-breaking.
His team pointed to eight parts of Johnson’s dossier they believe could help him prove his innocence. These included a witness who recalled him describing one event as “the most unsocially distanced gathering in the UK right now”, but then praised the former prime minister for his own behaviour.
The witness allegedly gave further evidence saying Johnson had “a glass of water in his hand, made a short speech and then went up to his flat” and “was the most sensible person there to be honest”. However, they did confirm his presence at the event.
The document revealed that Johnson’s initial reaction to the first media approach, from the Daily Mirror, to the No 10 press office in November 2021 about a law-breaking party was that it was “some kind of try-on”.
When the story broke, he said he was surprised at its impact. “I did not anticipate that this would be a big story,” he admitted in the dossier. The so-called Abba party in the No 10 flat on 13 November 2020 was barely mentioned in his written evidence.
Johnson said he did not accept that he “must have seen something” when social gatherings were taking place in No 10 as he headed up to his flat in the evening. “I do not recollect seeing or hearing anything that could be described as a party,” he added.
However, later in the report he conceded: “I accept that I could see into the press office on my way to the flat, although my attention is often elsewhere when I am returning to the flat.”
Johnson did admit calling one of the events a “party”. Explaining his decision for using the word, he said: “I used ‘party’ as shorthand because that is how it was being referred to in the media.”
When footage emerged of Johnson’s press secretary, Allegra Stratton, joking about a gathering in No 10, he said it caused him “immediate concern” because of the “impression that it gave”, even though he believed it was within the rules. He announced the inquiry which was later led by Gray.
Johnson, who spent the day before the hearing with his legal advisers, accepted that “hindsight is a wonderful thing”, and said he wished he had thought more about how the public would have felt about mid-pandemic parties at the heart of government.
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said Johnson’s claim to have acted in good faith was “sickening”, and it was “obvious” that he had deliberately misled MPs and so should stand down.
The Metropolitan police issued 126 fines for Partygate breaches, including one each to Johnson and his then chancellor, Sunak, although the former prime minister still claims not to understand their reasoning.
