Boris Johnson Partygate report – live: Former PM would have faced 90-day suspension for lying to MPs

Boris Johnson and his ministers have made at least 27 false statements to parliament since the 2019 general election – and have failed to correct them.

An investigation by The Independent, working with Full Fact, has found that the prime minister made 17 of the statements, while four were made by Matt Hancock as health secretary, two by home secretary Priti Patel, and one each by attorney general Suella Braverman, culture secretary Nadine Dorries, Afghan resettlement minister Victoria Atkins, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the House of Commons.

Here are some of the other occasions when Mr Johnson is accused of misleading the Commons. Lizzie Dearden reports:

Boris Johnson was unable to explain why he considered his wife Carrie and interior designer Lulu Lytle “absolutely necessary participants” in a work-related meeting, the report found. Archie Mitchell reports:

The pair were at a celebration in the Cabinet Room to commemorate Mr Johnson’s birthday in June 2020 – the event for which he and Mr Sunak received fixed penalty notices.

“A cake and alcohol were provided,” the report said, adding that it was “not socially distanced”.

The Privileges Committee concluded: “Mr Johnson did not explain why he believed the event was ‘reasonably necessary for work purposes’ other than to say that it took place immediately before a work meeting, and that ‘it seemed to me […] perfectly proper’ for officials to be ‘asked to come and wish me a happy birthday’ which we do not regard as convincing.

“Mr Johnson was also unable to explain why he considered his wife and interior designer ‘absolutely necessary participants’ in a work-related meeting.”

The report says Mr Johnson should have known he was breaking Covid rules, Kate Devlin reports.

It finds: “A workplace ‘thank you’, leaving drink, birthday celebration or motivational event is obviously neither essential or reasonably necessary”.

It goes on: “Mr Johnson is adamant that he believed all of the events which he attended and of which he had direct knowledge were essential.

“That belief, which he continues to assert, has no reasonable basis in the Rules or on the facts. A reasonable person looking at the events and the Rules would not have the belief that Mr Johnson has professed.”

Some 16 potentially Covid rule-breaking events took place at No 10 and Chequers, Boris Johnson told the committee in a statement of truth, Kate Devlin reports.

The committee says he has given them a “statement of truth” explaining 16 more events at No 10 and Chequers, his country retreat.

The committee said that it had accepted his explanations at face value, because they did not want to delay the report’s findings.

But they warn “If for any reasons it subsequently emerges that Mr Johnson’s explanations are not true, then he may have committed a further contempt.

In a statement Mr Johnson said: “The committee now says that I deliberately misled the House, and at the moment I spoke I was consciously concealing from the House my knowledge of illicit events. This is rubbish. It is a lie.”

Mr Johnson also attacked what he said was a “deranged conclusion” , accusing the Tory-majority group of MPs he has repeatedly sought to disparage of lying.

He called the committee led by Labour veteran Harriet Harman “beneath contempt” and claimed its 14-month investigation had delivered “what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination”.

Former attorney general Dominic Grieve said Mr Johnson’s “deliberate lies” could not be “brushed under the carpet”, Archie Mitchell reports.

“Ministers are supposed to give honest accounts to the House of Commons on facts, and he did not do it,” Mr Grieve said.

He lashed out at Mr Johnson’s attacks on the committee, branding it “the only mechanism by which the House of Commons can protect its privileges and enforce the standards it expects from MPs towards them.”

Mr Grieve told Sky News: “Mr Johnson thinks this is something he can criticise, there is not a shred of evidence this committee has acted in a deliberately biassed fashion against him.”

And Mr Grieve added: “It is completely unprecedented, but Mr Johnson is a completely unprecedented figure. We know he is a man who is a serial liar.

“He lies not only to protect himself, but to smear other people, I have watched it during the course of his career.

“Seeing that he did it so routinely and regularly in other settings, it doesn’t really come as a surprise that he lied through his back teeth about the circumstances relating to breaches of the rules in 10 Downing Street.”

Boris Johnson could receive an unwelcome birthday present next week.

The committee will now submit its findings to parliament for a vote, possibly on Monday – the same day as the ex-PM’s birthday.

Our chief political commentator John Rentoul gives his snap analysis:

Now we can see why Boris Johnson decided to resign rather than to face the voters of Uxbridge: the findings of the Committee of Privileges, unanimously agreed and therefore signed off by all four Conservative MPs who hold the majority on that committee, are brutal.

Never mind the speculation beforehand that the committee might conclude that the former prime minister had been reckless as to the truth of what he said in parliament about lockdown gatherings in Downing Street – the committee has gone full out, finding that Johnson “deliberately misled” the House of Commons about what he knew.

The committee sweeps aside Johnson’s semi-philosophical defence, that it could not see into his mind at the time he said there were no parties and that the rules had been followed at all times: “The committee is entitled to conclude on all the evidence that Mr Johnson did not honestly believe what he said he believed or that he deliberately closed his mind to the obvious or to his own knowledge.”

And when Johnson refused to accept the committee’s findings with good grace, submitting an argumentative letter at three minutes to midnight on Monday, the committee met again and rewrote the end of the report, escalating the dispute. If Johnson hadn’t resigned, the committee would have recommended suspension for 90 days – instead of the 10 needed to open the way for a by-election in Uxbridge. But the only thing it can do is recommend that he be denied a Palace of Westminster pass as a former MP. What a way for a prime minister to end their career.

The committee says Boris Johnson is guilty of “repeated contempts” of parliament across five different areas, Jon Stone reports.

In its report, the committee said the former prime minister had misled the Commons by:

– Claiming Covid rules and guidance were followed at all times in Number 10 on four separate occasions
– Failing to tell the House “about his own knowledge of the gatherings where the rules or guidance had been broken”
– Saying he relied on “repeated reassurances” that rules had not been broken
– Insisting on waiting for Sue Gray’s report to be published before he could answer questions in the House, when he had “personal knowledge which he did not reveal”
– By claiming that rules and guidance had been followed while he was present at gatherings in Number 10 when he “purported to correct the record” in May 2022.
The committee also found Mr Johnson had been “disingenuous” when giving evidence to them in six “ways which amount to misleading”.

The committee accused Boris Johnson of a “cynical attempt to manipulate public opinion” after his televised appearance before members in March, Archie Mitchell reports.

In its report, it said the former PM had accused members of “suppressing evidence which would be helpful to him”. After gathering the evidence Mr Johnson was referring to, he ended up “placing no reliance on it”.

“The clear implication is that there was nothing in the evidence and his criticism in public was a cynical attempt to manipulate Member and public opinion,” the report concluded.