Boris Johnson repeatedly misled UK parliament, inquiry finds

LONDON — Boris Johnson committed a “serious contempt” of parliament and repeatedly misled lawmakers over his knowledge of the Partygate scandal, a cross-party group of MPs concluded.

In a highly 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 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.

The committee has been examining whether Johnson misled parliament about his knowledge of 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.

Responding, Johnson dismissed the committee as a “kangaroo court” and took direct aim at the “political agenda” of committee chairman Harriet Harman.

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.

‘Undermine the parliamentary process’

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

The group of MPs said Thursday 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 access passes 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.

Its recommended sanctions will need to be voted on by the House of Commons, with government whips eyeing Monday for a vote.

‘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 accused him of “seeking to undermine the parliamentary process” by pre-empting its findings in his furious resignation statement last week.

His blast at the probe was, the group of MPs found, “in breach of the express requirements of confidentiality imposed by the Committee and the ordinary requirement that committee material is confidential unless and until the Committee determines that it should be published.”

This developing story is being updated.