Boris Johnson is facing fresh questions about his behaviour during Partygate after the Cabinet Office referred the former prime minister to police over further potential lockdown rule breaches.
It comes at a difficult time for Mr Johnson, as the cross-party committee of MPs enters its final deliberations on whether he lied to parliament about rule-breaking No 10 parties during Covid.
A sanction of 10 days or more could destroy the former PM’s political future, threatening to spark a by-election in his Uxbridge and Ruislip constituency.
Both the Metropolitan Police and Thames Valley Police are assessing information about Mr Johnson’s time at Chequers, which came from official diary entries reviewed ahead of the Covid public inquiry.
His ministerial diary reportedly revealed visits by family and friends as well as officials to the PM’s grace and favour residence in Buckinghamshire between June 2020 and May 2021.
The latest revelations appeared to increase the risk that the privileges committee could sanction Mr Johnson. A spokesperson said MPs would take the new evidence passed to them by the Cabinet Office “into account” before coming to a verdict.
A spokesperson for the committee told The Independent: “The committee will take this evidence and Mr Johnson’s response into account when considering its final report. The committee is making progress with its inquiry expeditiously.”
If a suspension of at least 10 days is recommended by the committee and voted through by MPs, his constituents can organise a recall petition. If 10 per cent of registered voters in the area sign it, then a by-election is held.
Recent precedents suggested Mr Johnson could be in trouble. Former SNP MP Margaret Ferrier faces a by-election in her Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency, for example, after receiving a proposed 30-day ban from the Commons.
The lengthy ban, recommended by parliament’s standards committe, came after she was found to have spoken in the Commons and taken the train between Scotland and England while positive for Covid.
Former Tory MP Owen Paterson resigned his North Shropshire seat before facing a by-election after he was punished for breaking lobbying rules.
Mr Paterson was hit with a 30-day suspension by the standards committee. He was found guilty of lobbying ministers and regulators on behalf of companies paying him more than £100,000 a year.
Former Conservative MP Rob Roberts received a 12-week suspension from parliament for sexually harassing a member of staff. He was stripped of the whip after parliament’s Independent Expert Panel (IEP) found he broke the sexual misconduct policy by making unwanted advances to a staff member.
But because the lengthy suspension was recommended by the IEP, rather than a Commons committee, Mr Roberts avoided a recall petition and by-election in his constituency.
Ian Paisley Jr was the first MP to face a recall petition when the DUP MP was suspended for 30 days for failing to declare two family holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government.
But Mr Paisley Jr held onto his seat after the petition failed to meet the threshold of signatures required for a by-election to take place.
However, some MPs have avoided punishments of 10 or more days. Andrew Bridgen was suspended for five days earlier this year after being found to have breached rules on declaring interests in relation to a forestry company.
And former SNP MP Kenny MacAskill, now with the Alba party, was suspended for five days in 2022 for rowdy behaviour in the Commons.
The privileges committee has contacted Mr Johnson to ask him to respond to the latest evidence provided by the Cabinet Office, causing a delay to its final deliberations on whether he broke parliamentary rules.
But it is not clear whether any further police inquiries could further delay process. The committee had been expected to deliver a verdict at a meeting set to take place on Tuesday but it was postponed because of the latest revelations, according to The Guardian.
The committee is preparing a draft of its report. If it is critical of Mr Johnson, relevant material from the draft report will be sent to him in confidence, giving him two weeks to submit a written response before the committee publishes its final report.
Some Tory MPs believe the committee may stop short of a 10-day suspension – even though they expect the former PM to be found guilty of “recklessly” misleading the Commons.
