Boris Johnson’s shameful litany of lies finally caught up with him yesterday as MPs ruled he repeatedly and deliberately misled Parliament on Partygate.
The Privileges Committee also accused the disgraced former PM of being “complicit” in a campaign to intimidate its members who were tasked with investigating him.
And it said Johnson continued with his lies even as MPs grilled him on them and then breached Commons rules by leaking the damning report’s findings before they were published.
The 106-page paper exposes as hollow his claims that “all guidance was followed in No10” during 2020’s illegal lockdown parties, first revealed by the Mirror in December 2021.
Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire said: “The evidence in this report is damning and the conclusions the committee came to are clear. Boris Johnson is a law-breaker and a liar.”
Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper added: “This should be the final nail in the coffin for Boris Johnson’s political career.
“It is completely unprecedented for a former Prime Minister to be found to have been a law-breaker and serial liar, who treated the public and parliament with total disdain.”
The committee would have ordered a hefty 90-day suspension had Johnson not quit last week as an MP in a hissy fit over the report.
But in predictable fashion, he yesterday still refused to accept he was in the wrong, unleashing a 1,679-word diatribe that branded the findings “deranged” and “tripe”.
Again insisting the lockdown parties were “reasonably necessary for work purposes”, he whined: “This is a dreadful day for MPs and for democracy.”
And some Tory crony loyalists leapt to his defence, despite the findings of the cross-party committee, led by Labour’s Harriet Harman and including four Conservative MPs.
It recommended Johnson should be blocked from getting a Commons pass usually given to ex-MPs so they can access the parliamentary estate. The report said Johnson had “closed his mind to truth”.
It added: “He misled the House on an issue of the greatest importance to the House and to the public, and he did so repeatedly.
“There is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House. He declined our invitation to reconsider what he said to the House was truthful.
“He misled the committee in the presentation of his evidence.”
On attempts to frustrate the committee during its probe, the report blasted his accusations that the hearing was “kangaroo court” in his resignation letter. It added: “This leaves us in no doubt that he was insincere in his attempts to distance himself from the campaign of abuse and intimidation of committee members.
“This in our view constitutes a further significant contempt.”
A Commons vote will be held on Monday when MPs will decide whether to approve the findings.
But Downing Street last night refused to say whether Rishi Sunak would turn up or stay away from the chamber, amid claims he is too weak to take on Johnson. The PM came under fire for approving Johnson’s honours list, which dishes out gongs to cronies and Partygate aides, reading like a roll-call of shame.
Shadow Commons Leader Ms Debbonaire said it was “inconceivable” that Mr Sunak had given the list the nod.
She added: “While Rishi Sunak is distracted with the ongoing Tory soap opera people are crying out for leadership on the issues that matter to them. It’s time for a fresh start.”
A 90-day suspension from the Commons would have been one of the harshest punishments in parliamentary history. The only MP to have been axed for longer was former Labour minister Keith Vaz.
He got a six month sanction in 2019 after being caught offering to buy cocaine for a male prostitute. Two of the MPs on the committee, one Labour and one SNP, had wanted Johnson to be expelled.
The Lib Dems demanded he be denied the up to £115,000 a year former PMs are entitled to claim to fund their office costs.
They also called for him to repay the £245,000 he got from taxpayers to cover legal costs for the probe.
