Boris Johnson faces being formally reprimanded for recklessly misleading parliament after MPs investigating the Partygate scandal denounced his “flimsy” explanations and suggested he had wrongly interpreted Covid guidance.
The former prime minister was left fighting for his political career after a tetchy three-and-a-half-hour evidence session in which he repeatedly claimed No 10 parties, with alcohol and little social distancing, had been “necessary” for work purposes.
Harriet Harman, the chair of the privileges committee investigating whether Johnson deliberately misled MPs over lockdown gatherings, expressed dismay at the “flimsy nature” of assurances he received that events were within the rules.
Bernard Jenkin, a senior Conservative MP on the committee, told him that the cross-party group of MPs did not agree with his interpretation of the guidance. “The guidance does not say you can have a thank you party and as many people in the room as you like,” he added.
Their comments appear to indicate the committee is considering concluding that Johnson deliberately misled the House of Commons when it reports back after Easter, although sources suggested it was possible they could recommend a sanction just short of that required to prompt a byelection.
Johnson’s dramatic return to the political limelight came as Rishi Sunak struggled to keep the Conservative party on track after a turbulent year, narrowly avoiding an overly damaging Commons rebellion on Brexit and finally publishing his long-awaited tax details in the middle of the lengthy evidence session.
Sunak won a vote on his revised plan for post-Brexit Northern Ireland trade, with 22 of his own MPs voting against the deal including Johnson and Liz Truss, meaning he did not have to rely on Labour votes to get it through.
The prime minister was accused by political opponents of “sneaking out” his tax details, which he first promised to release last summer, and which showed he made nearly £2m last year through income and capital gains, mostly from US-based investments.
Johnson has attempted to draw Sunak deeper into the Partygate scandal by suggesting that if Covid rules had been broken in Downing Street, then it should also have been “obvious” to the current prime minister as he spent time in the building.
In its interim report this month, the committee said the evidence “strongly suggests” breaches of guidance should have been obvious to Johnson, as he drew up the rules, and he may have misled parliament four times when he said all the rules and guidance had been followed.
At the start of the hearing, Johnson swore an oath on the King James Bible and said that “hand on heart” he had not lied to the Commons, but apologised for “what happened on my watch”. Yet he said the committee had “nothing to show” that he had been warned about illegal parties during lockdowns.
He strongly defended multiple lockdown events as having been “essential”, including one where he was pictured raising a glass at a leaving do. However, he admitted on social distancing guidance: “I’m not going to pretend that it was enforced rigidly.”
Johnson has argued that evidence gathered from No 10 officials “conclusively” shows he did not deliberately mislead parliament, as he was “repeatedly” assured by No 10 aides that no rules – as opposed to coronavirus guidelines – were broken.
Jenkin suggested he should have sought advice from lawyers, rather than political aides. Harman said: “If I was going at 100mph and I saw the speedometer saying 100mph it would be a bit odd, wouldn’t it, if I said: ‘Somebody assured me that I wasn’t.’”
An increasingly exasperated Johnson denounced the committee’s questioning as “complete nonsense”, but he finally admitted that he did not get assurances from his staff that Covid guidance had been followed in No 10 at all times.
In newly released evidence from the committee, Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, denied giving Johnson any assurances that Covid rules and guidance were followed at all times in No 10. He said he was unaware of anyone else there giving assurances, either.
Jack Doyle, the former prime minister’s then director of communications, said he was unsure of Johnson’s statement that he had been “repeatedly assured no rules were broken”, adding that “these are difficult things to say”.
The evidence also shows Johnson agreed to delete a proposed line for prime minister’s questions stating that all guidance had been followed after a warning, his former principal private secretary Martin Reynolds said.
The fresh documents laid bare the level of disdain felt by No 10 over the allegations, with Doyle advising a colleague when first approached by the media over the story in November 2021: “Just be robust and they’ll get bored.”
Johnson did, however, acknowledge that people might have thought “we were doing something that other people weren’t allowed to do” if they had seen photos of the gatherings, five of which he personally attended.
Yet he said he believed they were all within the rules, despite police subsequently issuing 126 fixed-penalty notices, and claimed he would have told businesses from the Downing Street podium that it was up to them whether they held leaving events during the pandemic.
There was no mention during the hearing of the gathering in the No 10 flat on 13 November 2020, which Johnson has already admitted he attended, but which neither Sue Gray nor the Metropolitan police properly investigated.
Johnson launched a direct attack at Harman over tweets in which she suggested he may have misled the Commons, saying her comments were “plainly and wrongly prejudicial” to the inquiry, but that he would trust the committee to act impartially.
In one heated set of exchanges, Johnson refused to explicitly disown supporters, who have called the committee “a kangaroo court”, arguing that the best way the MPs could prove their fairness would be to exonerate him of any wrongdoing. Footage of the session showed his lawyer, Lord Pannick, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head.
Johnson said he did not like such terms and did not want the committee to feel intimidated, but added: “I think that people will judge for themselves, on the basis of the evidence that you’ve produced, on the fairness of this committee. I have every confidence that you will show that you can be fair.”
Pressed by another Tory MP, Alberto Costa, on claims the process was inherently unfair, Johnson said: “I believe that if you study this evidence impartially, you will come to the conclusion that I have given.” He added that it would be “utterly insane” for him to have misled parliament and unfair for MPs to conclude he had.
The former prime minister prompted laughter for drawing on senior civil servant Sue Gray’s report into Partygate for evidence, despite spending weeks arguing that it was discredited after she was offered the role as chief of staff to Keir Starmer.
The stakes for Johnson are high. 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 that could lead to a byelection in his west London seat.
