Boris Johnson committed a “serious contempt” of Parliament and repeatedly misled UK lawmakers about rule-breaking parties in Downing Street during the pandemic, according to a long-awaited probe which despite its largely unsurprising findings still shocked with the severity of its indictment of the former prime minister.
Yet how the current premier Rishi Sunak responds is likely to have major implications for the prospects of both men. Their long-running animosity behind the scenes has boiled over into an ugly public spat in recent weeks and shredded any lingering sense of unity in the governing Conservative Party.
As things stand, the findings of the seven-strong, majority-Tory parliamentary committee which investigated Johnson’s behavior are confined to a report for Members of Parliament to vote on. That will happen on Monday, but a major question for Sunak is how to frame the question: will MPs be asked to endorse the findings, or merely acknowledge that the report was published?
