Boris Johnson facing UK parliament ban after damning Partygate inquiry

LONDON — Boris Johnson repeatedly misled lawmakers over his knowledge of the Partygate scandal, a cross-party group of MPs concluded.

In a damning report on the former prime minister’s conduct, the House of Commons privileges committee recommended Johnson be effectively banned from the parliamentary estate.

It said that, had Johnson not already quit as an MP, he would have faced a 90-day suspension from the House — the second-longest such punishment ever recommended for a member of parliament.

In key developments Thursday:

— Johnson dismissed the committee as a “kangaroo court” in a 1,600-word blast and took direct aim at the “political agenda” of committee chairman Harriet Harman. His remaining Conservative allies also dismissed its findings.

— The ex-prime minister was taken to task for pre-emptively attacking the committee’s work, and accused of “seeking to undermine the parliamentary process.”

— He was labelled “complicit” in a “campaign of abuse and intimidation” of the committee’s members.

— The British government confirmed MPs will get a vote on the recommended sanctions Monday.

‘So disingenuous’

The privileges committee has been examining whether Johnson misled parliament about his knowledge of multiple coronavirus rule-breaking parties held in Downing Street while the country faced restrictions. The Partygate affair, as it became known, dealt a major blow to Johnson’s administration, and he resigned as prime minister last year following an exodus of top ministers.

The report, published Thursday after months of work and testimony from Johnson himself, said the ex-Tory leader had been “deliberately disingenuous” with the committee when giving evidence on his knowledge of those gatherings and “advanced legally impermissible reasons to justify” what took place in government.

The report was unanimously agreed by all members of the cross-party committee, it said Thursday.

“We came to the view that some of Mr Johnson’s denials and explanations were so disingenuous that they were by their very nature deliberate attempts to mislead the Committee and the House, while others demonstrated deliberation because of the frequency with which he closed his mind to the truth,” they said.

In a preemptive strike last Friday, Johnson announced he was quitting parliament and attacked the committee’s motives.

The group of MPs said that if he had not resigned his seat, it would have recommended suspending him from the Commons for 90 days “for repeated contempts and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process.”

“In view of the fact that Mr Johnson is no longer a Member [of parliament], we recommend that he should not be granted a former Member’s pass,” the privileges committee said, referring to the clearance given to ex-MPs allowing them to visit parliament. Such a move would effectively ban Johnson from the parliamentary estate — unless he wins a seat again as an MP.

The wider House of Commons vote on whether to accept the committee’s findings — and endorse its steep sanction — will take place Monday, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt confirmed.

She said the parliamentary motion would be classed as “house business” and not government business — meaning she “is expecting a free vote” that would allow Conservative MPs to vote to condemn or exonerate Johnson without pressure from party whips.

‘Not a shred of evidence’

In a 1,600-word response to the report Thursday, Johnson blasted what he called a “political assassination” — and argued it had “not found a shred of evidence” that he knowingly attended illegal events while coronavirus restrictions were in place.

“This report is a charade,” he said. “I was wrong to believe in the committee or its good faith. The terrible truth is that it is not I who has twisted the truth to suit my purposes. It is [committee Chair] Harriet Harman and her Committee.”

In a typically Johnsonian swipe, the ex-prime minister even found time to quip about one of the committee member’s reported pastimes. “It is a measure of the Committee’s desperation that they are trying incompetently and absurdly to tie me to an illicit event – with an argument so threadbare that it belongs in one of Bernard Jenkin’s nudist colonies,” Johnson said.

But the former Tory leader’s advance attack on the committee last week — before its findings were published — also landed him in further trouble.

It ruled that Johnson committed a “very serious contempt” and said he was “complicit” in a “campaign of abuse and intimidation” of the committee and its members — pointing to his allies’ use of the term “kangaroo court” to describe its work.

“We note that Mr Johnson does not merely criticise the fairness of the Committee’s procedures; he also attacks in very strong, indeed vitriolic, terms the integrity, honesty and honour of its members,” they said.

“This attack on a committee carrying out its remit from the democratically elected house itself amounts to an attack on our democratic institutions,” the report states. “We consider that these statements are completely unacceptable.”

‘Throw rotten food’

Johnson allies quickly joined their former leader in attacking the committee Thursday.

The departing MP Nadine Dorries accused the committee of having “overreached,” while colleague Brendan Clarke-Smith criticized its “spiteful, vindictive and overreaching” conclusions. MP Simon Clarke, not a natural Johnson ally, said he was “amazed at the harshness” of the report.

“Why not go the full way, put Boris, in the stocks and providing [sic] rotten food to throw rotten food [sic] at him. Moving him around the marginals, so the country could share in the humiliation,” Johnson’s former parliamentary aide James Duddridge tweeted. “History will hold Boris in higher regard than this committee.”

Seizing on the “damning” findings, the opposition Labour Party said Johnson was “a lawbreaker and a liar.”

Shadow Leader of the House of Commons Thangam Debbonaire added: “While Rishi Sunak is distracted with the ongoing Tory soap opera people are crying out for leadership on the issues that matter to them.”

This developing story has been updated with further reporting.