Boris Johnson has said he would “never have dreamed” of intentionally misleading the House of Commons over Downing Street gatherings as he published a defence dossier he hopes will exonerate him from claims he lied to parliament.
The former prime minister admitted he misled the Commons by telling MPs that strict Covid rules and guidance had been followed in No 10 at all times – but he said his comments were made “in good faith”.
Johnson faces a battle for his future in parliament after the cross-party privileges committee found there was significant evidence he had misled MPs over lockdown parties, and that he and aides almost certainly knew at the time they were breaking rules.
However, in his own written evidence, he suggested there was no “smoking gun” that indicated he 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 from the assertions of his “discredited” former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, which were not supported by any documentation.
“It is no secret that Dominic Cummings bears an animus towards me, having publicly stated on multiple occasions that he wanted to do everything that he could to remove me “from power”. He added: “He cannot be treated as a credible witness.”
However, in its interim report the committee said the evidence “strongly suggests” breaches of guidance would have been “obvious” to the then prime minister at the time of the gatherings as he drew up the rules and announced them repeatedly in public.
Johnson responded that this suggested he had “deliberately” lied to parliament, adding: ”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.
The committee 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.
In his defence, Johnson rejected the suggestion that photographs of events at No 10, which show staff breaching social distancing rules, were problematic, arguing it was “implausible” he would have allowed the official photographer to take them if he felt they were evidence of law-breaking.
The committee identified at least four occasions where Johnson may have misled MPs, including when he told MPs in December 2021 that no rules or guidance were broken, even though subsequent investigations by the senior civil servant Sue Gray and the Metropolitan police found otherwise.
Yet much of his defence appears to rely on claims from his senior team that the rules and guidance had not been breached. “On the basis of assurances that I received from those with direct knowledge, I honestly believed that these events were lawful work gatherings,” he wrote.
“When I spoke in parliament on 1 and 8 December 2021, I did not know that any of the events that I had attended later escalated beyond what was lawful after I left.”
The defence has been published before a televised hearing on Wednesday in front of the privileges committee, which will determine if Johnson misled MPs during multiple questions about the conduct of the prime minister and staff that breached lockdown rules during the pandemic.
The publication of the 52-page dossier came a day after it was handed to the committee of MPs that will determine if Johnson misled the house.
Despite allies of Johnson accusing the committee of “sitting on” his written evidence after they submitted it at 2.32pm on Monday, that version contained “a number of errors and typos” so a final corrected copy was not submitted until 8.02am this morning.
Johnson’s team pushed back strongly against the committee’s assertion that his dossier contained no new evidence. “The committee has declined to publish this evidence in its previous reports, even though it possessed this material,” they said.
Eight parts of the dossier were pointed to as fresh material that would help Johnson prove his innocence. These included a witness who recalled him calling one event “the most unsocially distanced gathering in the UK right now”, then praising 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 has been overseen by Johnson’s lead counsel, David Pannick, and will form the basis of his defence for the gruelling four-hour session in front of the committee on Wednesday.
It revealed that Johnson’s initial reaction to the first media approach to the No 10 press office 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 not mentioned in his written evidence.
However, Johnson said he did not attend the Christmas party held on 18 December 2020. Instead, he believed he was at a meeting that took the decision to impose an effective lockdown in London by putting the city into “tier 4” under the old Covid restrictions system.
Johnson said “I simply don’t accept” that “I must have seen something” when 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 asked Jack Doyle, his then director of communications, about the event, and was told it involved drinks, cheese and a secret Santa. “Was it within the rules?” Johnson said he asked Doyle. “It was within the rules,” his aide replied.
A response was briefed to the press that “Covid rules have been followed at all times” – and Johnson confirmed “I agreed with the line”. He said no particular response to questions about the event were written in his PMQs briefing pack for when he went to face Keir Starmer the following day.
However, instead of sticking to the existing response, Johnson went further and said all guidance was followed completely in No 10. Johnson wrote: “I meant to repeat the line which my advisers had already given to the Daily Mirror – ie that ‘Covid rules were followed at all times’. However, I did believe that ‘all guidance was followed completely in No 10’. This was based on my honest and reasonable belief at the time.”
Johnson said “I did not mean that social distancing was complied with perfectly in No 10”, but defended this by saying it was “not required by the guidance”. Though there were several events Johnson attended that were later found to have broken Covid laws, he said: “I was not trying to conceal these events because I believed there was nothing to conceal or cover up.”
The other parties that fines were issued for that he joined but did not get an fixed-penalty notice for must have “escalated beyond what was lawful after I left”, Johnson claimed.
Neither before or after any event were any concerns raised with him personally, he added. As evidence, he cited senior No 10 staff who he said also believed the rules had been complied with, including his official spokesperson, the then principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, and his director of communications at the time, James Slack.
Johnson did admit he called one of the events a “party”. On 10 December 2021, Johnson messaged Doyle asking: “Is there a way we could get the truth about this party out there?” Explaining his decision for using the word, Johnson said in his dossier: “I used ‘party’ as shorthand because that is how it was being referred to in the media.”
Johnson admitted that “in hindsight” he did “mislead the house” – and added that the subsequent revelations about law-breaking “genuinely shocked me”.
“If I had been aware of this information, I would obviously not have stood up in parliament and said what I said,” he said of the evidence uncovered by the Met police and Gray.
When footage emerged of Johnson’s press secretary, Allegra Stratton, joking about a party in No 10, he said it caused him “immediate concern”. While Johnson said he still believed the event had been within the rules, he was concerned about the “impression that it gave”. MPs were told that despite the jokes about cheese and wine, he had been “repeatedly assured … there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken”.
