Keir Starmer has renewed calls for Boris Johnson to quit over the partygate scandal.
After the Met Police announced that 20 fixed penalty notices had been issued for breaches of Covid rules in Downing Street, Starmer asked the Prime Minister: “Why is he still here?”
Starmer said the police investigation showed there was “widespread criminality” as he kicked away Johnson's excuses for last year's lockdown parties.
The Commons echoed to Labour calls of “resign” as Starmer read the rap sheet against the Tory leader at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Starmer said: “He told the House no rules were broken in Downing Street during lockdown."
“The police have now concluded there was widespread criminality."
“The ministerial code says that ministers who knowingly misled the house should resign. Why is he still here?”
Johnson sought an escape hatch by highlighting how Starmer had called for him to go but then put the resignation demand on hold as the Commons united over war in the Ukraine.
The Prime Minister hit back: “He just changes position. We do at least expect some consistency from this human weathervane.
“It was only a week or so ago you were saying I shouldn’t resign. What is his position?”
Starmer said: “There are only two possible explanations – either he’s trashing the ministerial code or he’s claiming he was repeatedly lied to by his own advisers, that he didn’t know what was going on in his own house and his own office. Come off it."
Starmer linked the PM’s denials on partygate with the Tory claim to be a tax-cutting government.
The Labour leader said: “He really does think it’s one rule for him and another rule for everyone else, that he can pass off criminality in his office and ask others to follow the law.”
“That he can keep raising taxes and call himself a tax-cutter. That he can hike tax during a cost of living crisis and get credit for giving a bit back just before an election.
“When is he going to stop taking the British public for fools?”
Johnson replied that Labour would have kept the country in covid lockdown.
He said: “He has zero consistency on any issue. One thing we know is he’d like to take us back into the EU and take us back into lockdown if he possibly could.”
Johnson went on: “They want to keep people on benefits, we want to help people into work and that’s what we’re doing. They want to raise taxes, we want to cut taxes, and that’s what we’re doing.”
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