Tag Archives: partygate

Kemi Badenoch Says The Partygate Scandal Was ‘Overblown’

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The partygate scandal was “overblown” and people should not have been given fixed penalty notices for breaking Covid rules, Kemi Badenoch has said.

The new Tory leader made the surprising comments in her first interview since beating Robert Jenrick in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak.

She also described Boris Johnson as “a great prime minister”, even though she was one of dozens of senior Conservatives who resigned from his government.

Johnson and Sunak were also among those who were fined for breaking the Covid rules their own government had drawn up.

Appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on BBC1, Badenoch said: “I resigned during the Boris Johnson government. I thought he was a great prime minister, but there were some serious issues that were not being resolved.

“I think that during that tenure the public thought we were no longer speaking for them or looking out for them, we were in it for ourselves.

“Some of them I think were perception issues. A lot of the stuff that happened around partygate was not why I resigned, I thought it was overblown. We should not have created fixed penalty notices, for example. That was us not going with our principles.

“And then we had the issue with the Chris Pincher scandal, when ministers were sent out to say things that were not true. That was when I decided things had gone too far.”

Asked by Kuenssberg if the public were “wrong to be upset about partygate”, Badenoch said: “No, they were not wrong to be upset about partygate.

“The problem was that we should not have criminalised everyday activities the way that we did. People going out for walks, all of them having fixed penalty notices. That ended up creating a trap for Boris Johnson.”

Kuenssberg then asked: “Wasn’t the problem that people in government didn’t obey the rules?”

Badenoch replied: “Yes that’s right, people in government didn’t obey the rules. But they were not MPs, they were often staffers, and I think that the way that we had created those regulations ended up entrapping …”

The presenter then interrupted her to say: “The prime minister and the chancellor both got fines, it wasn’t just people who worked for them.”

The Tory leader replied: “Indeed, but as we saw with those events, when people see the full story of what happened they understand that problems were created because of the way that we created the regulations.”

Labour chair Ellie Reeves said: “Listening to Kemi Badenoch dismiss partygate as ‘overblown’ will add insult to injury for families across Britain who followed the rules, missing loved one’s deaths and family funerals, whilst her colleagues partied in Downing Street.”

Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokesperson Sarah Olney said: “It’s clear the Conservative Party haven’t learnt anything from the years of sleaze and scandal under their watch.

“Kemi Badenoch’s comments are an insult to those who lost family members during the pandemic while Boris Johnson partied and lied.

“On day one of the job she’s already shown she’s completely out of touch with the public.”

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Harriet Harman Tearful After Tory MP’s Defence Against Partygate Attacks From Boris Johnson Allies

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The House of Commons was emotional as a Conservative MP made a moving tribute to Harriet Harman following attacks from Tories over Boris Johnson and partygate.

Conservatives allied to Johnson have suggested veteran Labour MP Harman, who chaired the privileges committee which found the former MP guilty of lying to parliament repeatedly, was biased because of tweets she posted about partygate before taking up the role.

On Monday, MPs approved the committee’s report that judged the former prime minister’s outriders had launched a “co-ordinated” attack on its work.

During a debate ahead of the report being nodded through without the need for a vote, Conservative MP Laura Farris made an intervention damning her Tory colleagues.

Harman has long been aware of the potential issue – and asked the government for the green light to continue as chair of the committee investigating Johnson.

Harman said she wanted to avoid the “perception” that she was biased against the former PM – and was “assured that I should continue the work” by the prime minister at the time, which was still Johnson.

During Monday’s debate, Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Johnson loyalist who was criticised for his role in the attacks on the committee, maintained it was “legitimate to question” Harman’s position.

But Farris took a different view, defending Harman and paying tribute to her career – with her parliamentary colleague close to tears as a result.

Farris said: “The member for Camberwell and Peckham (Harman’s constituency) had already announced her intention to retire from parliament at the next election.

“A parliamentary career that has spanned five decades and has been defined by her commitment to the advancement of women’s rights.

“Fourteen weeks before she took up that appointment (as committee chair) her husband of 40 years, Jack, had died.

“Against this background, I invite members of the House to consider what is more likely – that she agreed to chair the committee as a final act of service to this House, or that she did so because she was interested in pursuing a personal vendetta against Boris Johnson.”

Farris continued: “It is completely unacceptable to allege or insinuate that members of the privileges committee are corrupt or that the inquiry was somehow rigged.”

Harman’s husband, Labour MP Jack Dromey, died suddenly in his flat in Birmingham in January last year.

The initial report by the privileges committee, which has a Conservative majority, suggested Johnson should face a 90-day Commons suspension if he had not already quit parliament ahead of its release.

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Boris Johnson Has Been Stripped Of His Parliamentary Pass For Lying To MPs

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Boris Johnson has been stripped of his parliamentary pass for repeatedly lying to the House of Commons over partygate.

MPs voted 354 to 7 to support last week’s privileges committee’s report which found him guilty of misleading parliament by insisting lockdown rules were followed in Downing Street during the pandemic.

Johnson resigned as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip 10 days ago after seeing an advance copy of the committee’s report.

Had he remained an MP, the committee said it would have recommended he be suspended from the Commons for 90 days.

Johnson described the inquiry as a “kangaroo court” and claimed he was the victim of a political stitch-up.

But following a five-hour debate, an overwhelming majority of MPs voted to back the committee’s findings, including the recommendation that Johnson should have the parliamentary pass given to former MPs removed.

The debate also exposed the deep splits within the Tories over their former leader, with around 200 of the party’s MPs – including prime minister Rishi Sunak – abstaining by failing to take part in the vote.

Some 118 Tory MPs voted to back the committee’s findings, including cabinet ministers Alex Chalk, Penny Mordaunt Gillian Keegan, and former PM Theresa May.

The Tories who voted against the committee’s report were Joy Morrisey, Karl McCartney, Adam Holloway, Heather Wheeler, Nick Fletcher and Bill Cash.

In a bizarre interview this morning, Sunak repeatedly refused to say what he thought of the report, insisting he “wouldn’t want to influence” any MPs on how to vote.

Meanwhile, the prime minister’s official spokesman said he was too busy with other engagements, including hosting the prime minister of Sweden, to attend parliament.

Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “Tonight Rishi Sunak committed a cowardly cop-out. His failure to vote says all you need to know about this prime minister’s lack of leadership.

“Sunak promised integrity yet when push came to shove, he was too weak to even turn up.”

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Boris Johnson Urges Privileges Committee To Publish Their ‘Nonsense’

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Boris Johnson has called on the MPs investigating whether he lied to parliament over partygate to publish their “nonsense” straight away.

The former prime minister’s latest outburst came as it emerged publication of the privileges committee’s report had been delayed.

It had been expected that their findings would be released tomorrow and confirm that they had found Johnson guilty.

But it emerged this afternoon that the report may not now see the light of day until Thursday after Johnson – who quit as an MP on Friday after seeing an initial copy of the report – sent a letter to the committee on Monday night.

In a statement this evening, he said: “The privileges committee should publish their report and let the world judge their nonsense. They have no excuse for delay.

“Their absurdly unfair rules do not even allow any criticism of their findings.

“I have made my views clear to the committee in writing – and will do so more widely when they finally publish.”

Johnson has previously described the committee as a “kangaroo court” and accused them of carrying out a “witch hunt”.

In a lengthy statement, he said the committee’s report was “riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice” while providing him with “no formal ability to challenge anything they say”.

He said the panel of MPs had “still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons”.

But he said he thought their “purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts”.

“They know that I corrected the record as soon as possible; and they know that I and every other senior official and minister – including the current prime minister and then occupant of the same building, Rishi Sunak – believed that we were working lawfully together,” he said.

“I did not lie, and I believe that in their hearts the committee know it.”

As he is no longer an MP, the committee cannot suspend him from the Commons. However, they could recommend that he be denied a parliamentary pass, which is ordinarily given to former MPs.

It has also emerged that members of the committee have had to be given security after receiving abuse from Johnson supporters.

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Boris Johnson: Covid Rule-Breaking Claims ‘A Load Of Nonsense’

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Boris Johnson has branded suggestions he may have taken part in further rule-breaking during the pandemic “a load of absolute nonsense”.

The former prime minister would not say who he believes is trying to “stitch him up”, having previously claimed he appears to be the victim of a politically motivated plot.

But he insisted that the Cabinet Office decision to hand over entries from his official diary during the pandemic to police without first querying them with him was “ridiculous”.

No 10 and the Cabinet Office are adamant that ministers were not involved when Whitehall officials passed concerns to the Metropolitan Police and Thames Valley Police.

The entries revealed visits by Johnson’s friends to Chequers – the prime minister’s country estate – and events in Downing Street during the pandemic, according to The Times, which broke the story.

The new information is said to have come to light during a review by taxpayer-funded lawyers ahead of the Covid public inquiry.

Johnson was catching a flight in Washington DC on Friday as part of his trip to the US, where he is speaking about the war in Ukraine, when he was approached by a Sky News journalist asking about the revelations.

“You want my honest view, I think this whole thing is completely nonsensical,” he said.

Asked what the entries show, he replied: “They merely record events in my day.”

Johnson was previously fined for attending a gathering in Downing Street to mark his birthday in June 2020 – one of a series of political crises that ultimately led to the end of his premiership.

“This whole thing is a load of nonsense from beginning to end… I think it’s ridiculous that elements in my diary should be cherry-picked and handed over to the police, to the Privileges Committee without even anybody having the basic common sense to ask me what these entries referred to,” he said.

Asked whether he believes Sunak is trying to stitch him up, he said: “I just think it’s totally nonsensical and bizarre. There are tens of thousands of entries in the prime ministerial diary… None of them constitute a breach of the rules during Covid.”

Johnson suggested none of the entries in question relate to periods when the country was in lockdown, but times when other restrictions were in place.

He added: “For reasons that – somebody, somewhere, thinks it’s sensible to do this – I don’t.”

The privileges committee, which is conducting an inquiry into whether Johnson lied to Parliament about the partygate scandal, has also been informed of the new information.

The fallout adds to the problems confronting Sunak, who was handed a fixed penalty alongside Johnson over the June 2020 event and now faces unrest from the former prime minister’s allies.

Sunak “definitely” did not go to the grace-and-favour retreat in contravention of coronavirus rules when he was chancellor during the pandemic, his press secretary said.

The rime minister has not discussed the controversy with his predecessor, the spokeswoman said.

Johnson, in a letter to the chair of the Covid inquiry, indicated he was severing ties with taxpayer-funded lawyers representing him.

It is understood he lost confidence in the Cabinet Office.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said earlier on Friday the public was “fed up to the back teeth” with stories about the former prime minister.

“These are deeply personal things and increasing revelations about Boris Johnson, I think, just add to that sense of hurt and people are fed up with it,” he said.

“I do think there are questions now about why have these allegations not come out before, all these allegations.

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Is It Finally All Over For Boris Johnson?

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As political barometers go, it was pretty stark.

Asked if they believed Boris Johnson told the truth when he appeared before MPs this week, not a single member of the Question Time audience put their hand up.

Even more worryingly for the former prime minister, the programme was being broadcast from Newcastle-under-Lyme, part of the famous Red Wall of seats where he is still said to be popular with voters.

It was a fitting denouement to a miserable week for a man who was still in Downing Street less than a year ago.

Johnson suffered two major blows to his hopes of a political comeback within a few hours on Wednesday afternoon.

His irascible performance in front of parliament’s privileges committee, which is investigating claims he misled the Commons over partygate, left few in any doubt that he will be found guilty.

Should the committee decide to impose a suspension of more than 10 days, and parliament votes for it, he could face a by-election in his Uxbridge seat.

On the same day, Johnson’s hopes of leading a wide-scale Tory revolt against his arch-nemesis Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal ended in failure when only 21 of his colleagues followed him into the No lobby.

Meanwhile, while all this was going on, Rishi Sunak enjoyed a game of cricket in the Downing Street garden with England’s T20 world cup-winning team.

Rishi Sunak enjoyed a game of cricket in the No10 garden with England's T20 World Cup winning and children from the ACE cricket programme on Wednesday.
Rishi Sunak enjoyed a game of cricket in the No10 garden with England’s T20 World Cup winning and children from the ACE cricket programme on Wednesday.

Simon Walker/10 Downing Street

As he surveys the political scene this weekend, Johnson will surely be contemplating the very real possibility that his ambition of a triumphant return to No.10 will be unfulfilled.

Many experienced observers of Westminster believe that the game is up for the former PM.

One senior Tory told HuffPost UK: “He’s just like that drunk uncle at the wedding who is there at the reception but you don’t really know why.”

Others believe that even Johnson’s media cheerleaders have decided to move on and throw their weight behind Sunak as the next election draws nearer.

“I thought it was very telling there was a front page of the Telegraph was very negative about him after his committee appearance,” said one former cabinet member. “I think that’s a weathervane.

“I think it’s a cocktail of the partygate stuff and the Brexit vote. It could have gone the other way – he could have had a major triumph in the committee and there could have been a big rebellion, but in the end it was just the usual suspects who voted with him.

“A line has been drawn and people just want to move on.”

One Tory MP told HuffPost UK: “His defence at the committee was basically ‘I’m an idiot’. Some people might accept that, but I think it just reaffirmed that him coming back is just not a realistic possibility.

“Even if Rishi falls under a bus, literally or politically, it’s not going to Boris who steps in to the breach. A significant enough number of MPs just wouldn’t wear it. Most of them realise he’s not an asset to them any more.”

Tory peer and election guru Lord Hayward told Sky News: “His support is diminishing and his impact on the party is diminishing the longer Rishi Sunak is prime minister.”

Former minister Caroline Nokes was even more forthright, declaring that Johnson is “finished”.

“I think there was a very clear message from his own ministers back in the summer that they didn’t want him to carry on,” she told ITV’s Peston show.

“He didn’t choose to stand against Rishi Sunak back in the autumn when we had the second leadership challenge.

“As far as I’m concerned, Boris Johnson is not coming back as prime minister.”

Johnson still does have his hardcore supporters who will defend him to the bitter end.

Jacob Rees-Mogg told Channel 4 News “he’s winning in the court of public opinion”, while Nadine Dorries said the privileges committee is “a kangaroo court” determined to find him guilty regardless of the evidence.

One Johnson ally said that if the partygate inquiry had been properly dealt with a year ago, he would probably still be PM.

“It would have helped restore perspective and pedestrianise what was portrayed as sinister and dramatic at the time,” they told HuffPost UK.

“The world now knows that police looked at the legality and found the PM and Rishi at fault for one event that the public would totally understand.

“People were working hard in No.10 and were there for long and endless hours – they weren’t heading in for a party. And the bad stuff unveiled by the Sue Gray report was a shock to Boris as much as anyone.

“We all lost the plot getting obsessed with partygate when we should have been looking at things like the anaemic economic growth, high inflation, the delays to HS2 and the fact that corporation tax is too high.”

However, the ally did agree with Johnson’s detractors that there is no chance of him returning to Downing Street.

They said: “There is no vacancy. Period.”

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Boris Johnson Slapped Down For Taking Too Long To Answer Partygate Questions

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Boris Johnson was slapped down for taking too long to answer questions about the partygate scandal during a crunch hearing.

The former prime minister is being interrogated by MPs on the privileges committee in an event that has the potential to end his political career.

He has been quizzed on his understanding of the Covid-19 guidance and what he knew about gatherings taking place under his nose in No.10.

However, MPs grew impatient with his answers, resulting in one senior Conservative MP telling him to stop repeating himself.

Sir Bernard Jenkin told Johnson: “I’m sorry, you’re giving very long answers and it’s taking longer than we need.

“And you’re repeating yourself quite a lot. Can we just get on with the questions?”

Chair of the meeting Harriet Harman went on to tell the west London MP to be “succinct” with his answers.

The committee is scrutinising the former PM over statements he made to MPs about the partygate scandal.

At the heart of their investigation is whether or not Johnson “misled” the House of Commons about what had gone on in Downing Street.

In his opening comments, Johnson swore “hand on heart” that he did not lie to the House of Commons.

Johnson swore on the King James Bible to tell the truth before issuing an apology and adding “hand on heart, I did not lie to the House”.

He went on: “When those statements were made, they were made in good faith and on the basis on what I honestly knew and believed at the time.”

If the committee decides Johnson did mislead MPs – and the Commons backs suspending him for 10 days or more – he could face a by-election in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.

However, there is a long process to get through before the saga potentially reaches that stage.

Yesterday Johnson submitted his so-called “defence dossier” – a 52 page document his team claimed will exonerate him.

In it Johnson accepted that he misled MPs but insisted his partygate denials were made “in good faith” based on what he “honestly” knew at the time.

The committee, meanwhile, released a 110-page pack of messages and evidence on Wednesday morning.

It revealed the claims of one No.10 official who claimed Boris Johnson had the opportunity to “shut down” lockdown parties but joined in instead.

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Boris Johnson Is ‘Generally An Honest Man’, Says Close Ally

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Boris Johnson is “generally an honest man”, one of his close allies has insisted.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, tried to mount a defence of the former prime minister as the partygate scandal returned to haunt the Tories.

The cross-party privileges committee published a report on Friday saying Johnson may have repeatedly misled parliament over what he knew about lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street during the pandemic.

But despite its damning findings, the ex-PM insisted that he has been “vindicated” by the report.

On the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show this morning, Heaton-Harris – who was chief whip when Johnson was in Number 10 – said he believed the former Tory leader had now “knowingly” misled MPs.

He said: “There are four occasions where Boris may have done that.

“I wouldn’t have become Boris’s chief whip if I didn’t believe him that he did not knowingly mislead parliament and I believe him to be an honest man – he did not knowingly mislead parliament.”

Heaton-Harris added: “He gave me chapter and verse that demonstrated to me that he did not knowingly mislead parliament.

“Generally he is an honest man and I truly believe that.”

The cabinet minister had earlier told Sky News that he was “absolutely convinced” Johnson had not misled MPs.

The former prime minister is set to give evidence to the privileges committee later this month.

If he is found guilty of misleading parliament, he could be suspended from the Commons and potentially lose his seat.

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Boris Johnson May Have Repeatedly Misled Parliament Over Partygate, MPs Say

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Boris Johnson may have misled parliament on multiple occasions over whether lockdown rules were broken in Downing Street, MPs have found.

If found guiltily, the former prime minister could be suspended or expelled from the Commons and even trigger a by-election in his seat.

In a damning report published on Friday, the Commons privileges committee said the breaches by No.10 staff “would have been obvious” to Johnson.

“There is evidence that the House of Commons may have been misled.” the MPs said, listing a series of incidents.

Johnson is due to defend himself in front of the committee in person later this month.

Parliament

The committee is not investigating whether rules were broken or not, the police have already concluded they were, but specifically whether Johnson lied to parliament about it.

As prime minister, Johnson repeatedly told the Commons that no Covid rules had been breached in No.10. But he was later fined by police for attending an event.

The MPs said: “The evidence strongly suggests that breaches of guidance would have been obvious to Johnson at the time he was at the gatherings.

“There is evidence that those who were advising Johnson about what to say to the press and in the House were themselves struggling to contend that some gatherings were within the rules.”

The committee said there was evidence “a culture of drinking in the workplace in some parts of No.10” continued “after Covid restrictions began”.

Parliament

Today’s report is not the committee’s final conclusion, but if it decides Johnson did mislead parliament it can recommend punishments such as suspension or expulsion from the Commons. MPs would need to vote for this.

In response, Johnson said the report showed he had been “vindicated” and maintained it had been his “honest belief” that no rules were broken.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said the report was “absolutely damning” of Johnson.

She said if Johnson is found to have misled parliament, Rishi Sunak must make clear “his career is over”.

It comes one day after it was announced Sue Gray, the senior civil servant who authored the partygate report, has quit government to become Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.

Johnson suggested her decision to take a job with Labour calls into question the impartiality of her report, which contributed to his downfall.

But MPs on the privileges committee said it own report is “not based on the Sue Gray report” but on evidence provided directly to it by witnesses.

The committee is chaired by former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, but it has a Tory majority.

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Boris Johnson Described A Lockdown Leaving Do As ‘Most Unsocially Distanced Party In UK’

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Boris Johnson described a Downing Street leaving do during lockdown as “the most unsocially distanced party in the UK right now”, it has been claimed.

According to a new podcast by ITV, staff were left stunned when Johnson later denied knowledge of any rule-breaking in Number 10.

The fresh partygate allegations come amid speculation that the former prime minister is plotting a Downing Street comeback.

Johnson is accused of making the comment at a leaving party for his director of communications, Lee Cain.

Pictures later emerged of the then PM raining a glass after delivering a speech at the gathering.

One source told the ‘Partygate – The Inside Story’ podcast: “I was working late – some music came on, the mumbling sort of rose, and there were loads of people stood around, but this time I came out because I heard the prime minister speaking and that’s when I heard the quote: ‘This is the most unsocially distanced party in the UK right now’ and everyone was laughing about it.”

The source added: “The PM making that comment really sticks out in my mind, that was pretty bad, because the picture showed one side of this going on.

“But what it didn’t capture is the 20 odd people sat on top of each other on the opposite side – they’re literally shoulder to shoulder, clamped in like a tube carriage.

“And he was there seeing people sat on other people’s laps (in) close proximity, crowded, scrunched up in front of him. He saw that, he saw people with drinks. You saw the picture. It had booze all over that desk. He’s not blind, he’s not stupid. He saw that and didn’t shut it down.

“That was really bad, but that was a normal sight, a regular occurrence, so it wasn’t unusual to see that sort of thing.”

Johnson later told MPs that no lockdown rules were broken in Number 10 – comments which are now the subject of a Commons inquiry.

Another source said of the PM’s comments: “We all watched it live and we were just gobsmacked. We all looked at each other and thought ‘why the hell is he saying this?’ We all know it had happened, he knew it happened – he was there.

“We were all just shocked that he would even deny it. He was there. We were there. We were all there together. And suddenly he’s denying it.”

The podcast also claimed that staff “shredded” key documents ahead of Sue Gray’s partygate investigation and corroborated their stories before filling out Metropolitan Police questionnaires on the scandal.

Johnson, along with his wife Carrie and Rishi Sunak, was fined for attending a birthday party thrown for him in 10 Downing Street during lockdown – but not over Lee Cain’s leaving party.

A spokesperson for Johnson did not deny he had made the “unsocially distanced party” comment.

They said: “During the pandemic, 10 Downing Street staff worked to coordinate the UK government’s national response.

“The work of Downing Street staff was crucial as they helped marshal the UK’s response to a national emergency.”

Liberal Democrat chief whip Wendy Chamberlain said: “These shocking revelations confirm Boris Johnson’s total disregard for the rules he asked us all to follow. He laughed and partied while the rest of the country suffered.

“Conservative MPs should be ashamed that they backed Johnson for so long and that some are even considering putting him back in Number 10.”

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