Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament about illegal Covid-19 lockdown parties held during his tenure, a parliamentary committee has found.
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Former U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled parliament at an illegal Covid-19 lockdown party held during his tenure, a parliamentary committee said on Thursday, labeling the act “gross contempt”.
The long-awaited “Partygate” report by the Privileges Committee delivered the damning verdict, finding that Johnson deliberately lied to Parliament on multiple occasions when he was investigated for a Downing Street party held under his leadership and in breach of his own lockdown rules.
“We conclude that Mr Johnson willfully misled the House of Representatives in grave contempt of Congress,” the cross-party committee’s findings said.
The 100-page report, which investigated six rallies at the prime minister’s residence during the UK’s strictest Covid restrictions, also concluded that Johnson had engaged in a “campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation” to cover up the rallies situation events.
The committee, made up of members of the ruling Conservative Party and the opposition Labor Party, recommended that Johnson should not be given a former MP’s pass that would allow the former prime minister to enter parliament.
It also said Johnson should have been suspended for 90 days had he remained in parliament. Johnson resigned as an MP last week after seeing a senior copy of the report. At the time, he accused the cross-party committee of dealing him a “political blow” like a “kangaroo court”.
further statement According to Perspective Magazine and The TelegraphThe former prime minister, a fervent Brexiteer, also accused the committee of “biased views”, saying most members “voted Remain” in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
“The committee now says I intentionally misled the House and that, at the moment I spoke, I consciously withheld from the House my knowledge of illegal events,” he wrote.
“It’s rubbish. It’s a lie. In order to come to this crazy conclusion, the committee had to say a series of things that are patently absurd or contradicted by the facts.”
The MP who produced the report described Johnson’s remarks as a blow to British democracy.
“An attack on a committee carrying out its mandate from the democratically elected House itself amounts to an attack on our democratic institutions,” the committee said.