On Wednesday, former prime minister Boris Johnson will be questioned for hours over whether he deceived parliament about COVID-19 lockdown parties.
Johnson, who was removed from Downing Street in September, is being investigated by Parliament’s Committee of Privileges for allegedly misleading the House of Commons about parties.
Johnson may be suspended if the committee decides he knowingly misled lawmakers. In addition, his constituency may have a by-election after a 10-day ban.
The former leader, who mulled a second run as prime minister last year, will testify to the committee in a televised session. He claims the committee is biased and was not informed the occurrences violated the guidelines.
On Wednesday, the committee released 110 pages of evidence proving that Downing Street staff believed Johnson knew about parties despite his claims.
Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former senior advisor, called it “comical” that the former prime minister felt a May 2020 Downing Street garden party constituted business.
Cummings, who left Downing Street following their dispute, stated, “The PM absolutely knew it was a drinks party because I informed him and when he came outside he saw a drinks party.”
After months of revelations that he and other top government members had attended alcohol-fueled Downing Street parties in 2020 and 2021, when most of Britain was ordered to remain home, Johnson was ousted.
Most of his top ministers, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, resigned after the outrage and repeated accusations of lying.
In the fresh testimony released on Wednesday, cabinet secretary Simon Case claimed he had never offered Johnson any assurances that Downing Street had followed COVID guidelines and did not know any employees who had.
His findings contradict Johnson’s claim that authorities frequently told him the procedures were followed.
Another Downing Street insider said Johnson could have “shut down” the celebrations but instead made speeches and drank with workers.
In a preliminary report released last month, the committee of seven Conservative Party legislators claimed Johnson may have deceived parliament four times in December 2021 about the parties and that the rule breach should have been “clear.”
On Tuesday, Johnson admitted to misleading parliament but claimed he “would never have imagined” doing so. Instead, he stated Cummings intended to overthrow him.
Johnson called the committee’s claims ridiculous and political.
Johnson said on Wednesday that there was no indication that he willfully deceived parliament and was not told that the events breached any laws.
Johnson became the first prime minister to be fined by London police for attending a June 2020 Downing Street birthday party.
By the time Johnson announced his resignation last summer, Britain had over 175,000 coronavirus fatalities, one of the highest in the world.
Parliament must adopt the committee’s Johnson punishments.
Sunak said senators might vote on Johnson’s punishment according to their convictions rather than party lines.
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