Johnson declines to criticise his supporters who are now saying Sue Gray’s report discredited
Here are the key lines from Boris Johnson’s TV interview.
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Johnson suggested that, in light of the fact that she has now taken a job with Labour, Sue Gray was the wrong person to conduct the Partygate report. When it was put to him that he was now questioning the impartiality of a civil servant, he replied:
As I say, people will make up their own minds about this.
And I think that, if you told me at the time I commissioned Sue Gray to do the inquiry, if you’ve told me all the stuff that I now know, I think I might have cross-examined her more closely about her independence and I might have thought about whether she was … sorry, I might have invited her to reflect whether she was really the right person to do it.
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He declined to criticise his supporters who are now saying the Gray report is discredited. See 2.31pm for examples of what the Johnsonites are saying about the report. Asked about their comments, Johnson declined to say that he agreed with them, and instead tried to change the subject. When pressed on this, and asked if he would tell them they were wrong to say the report was discredited, he dodged the question again, before saying: “People will draw their own conclusions.”
What is so interesting about the report today is that after 10 months of efforts and sifting through all the innumerable WhatsApps and messages, they found absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise [ie, to suggest that he knew the rules were being broken].
There’s absolutely nothing to show that any adviser of mine or civil servant warned me in advance that events might be against the rules, nothing to say that afterwards they thought it was against the rules, nothing to show that I myself believed or was worried that something was against the rules.
This is not correct. There is no evidence in the report that proves categorically that Johnson knew the rules were being broken when he assured MPs they weren’t. But there is quite a lot of new evidence to suggest that he knew. The committee says: “The evidence strongly suggests that breaches of guidance would have been obvious to Mr Johnson at the time he was at the gatherings.” See 12.21pm.
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He claimed that he was “very, very surprised” when he was told that an event he attended in the cabinet room – the suprise birthday “party”, for which he was fined – was against the rules.
Key events
Q: Some of your supporters says this discredits her report.
Johnson declines to say that himself.
And that’s it. I will post full quotes from the interview shortly.
Johnson says he would have queried Sue Gray’s independence during Partygate if he had known she would join Labour
Q: After the reports came out, did you ever think back and consider whether events had been within the rules?
Johnson says the initial story was about something he had not attended.
He asks why he would have gone to the dispatch box and said the events were within the rules if he had known he could have been contradicted.
He says he wants to add a “codicil”. He says it is a “peculiarity” that Sue Gray, who was presented to him as someone impartial, has now been appointed as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
Now people may want to look at that in a different light, he says.
Q: It is quite something to question a civil servant like that, isn’t it?
Johnson says people will make up their own minds.
He says, if he knew then what he knows now, he would have “cross-examined her more closely about her independence” before appointing her to do the Partygate report.
Q: The committee says it should have been obvious to you rules were broken.
Johnson says as PM you do what civil servants advise you to do. You move from one event to another. As people know, he went to some events where he said thank you. He believed implicitly they were within the rules. And no one told him, before or after, that they were against the rules.
Q: But the report has a WhatsApp message from your communications director saying he was struggling to justify what happened?
Johnson says that was the birthday event in the cabinet room. No 10 was so sure it was within the rules that the official photographer was there.
If he had thought it was against the rules, he would have raised it with staff. There is nothing to suggest that. That is because he implicitly thought what happened was within the rules.
Johnson says the reason there is no evidence to show that he thought what was happening in No 10 was against the rules was because he did not think that.
He is certain there has been no contempt, he says.
Boris Johnson has recorded a clip for broadcasters about the privileges committee report. Sky and BBC News are showing it now. From what we have heard so far, it broadly just replicates what he said in a written statement earlier. (See 12.45pm.)
People ‘standing 4-5 deep’ at No 10 leaving do attended by Johnson, says privileges committee report
ITV News, which broke some of the key Partygate stories, launched a podcast about the story in January and its report quoted a source saying that, when Boris Johnson attended the leaving party for Lee Cain on 13 November 2020, he joked about it being “the most unsocially distanced party in the UK right now”.
The privileges committee report contains more evidence about this. It says:
On 27 November 2020, when the rules and guidance in force for the prevention of the spread of Covid included restrictions on indoor gatherings of two or more people, and maintaining social distancing of 2 metres or 1 metre with risk mitigations in the workplace wherever possible, Mr Johnson attended and gave a speech at a gathering in the vestibule of the No 10 press office to thank a member of staff who was leaving. We received evidence that there was no social distancing and people were standing 4–5 deep. We received evidence that Mr Johnson said that it was “probably the most unsocially distanced gathering in the UK right now”.
Some of Boris Johnson’s supporters would like him back as prime minister. But Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister and a strong Johnson supporter during the Brexit process, told Times Radio that he should not come back. He said:
I don’t doubt that Boris feels that he left number 10 prematurely. But let’s not forget why it was. It was over the Pincher affair …
The idea that Boris Johnson could be back as prime minister when those were the circumstances which finally led to his departure, I’m afraid is fanciful.
Boris will have my admiration for a long time. He saved this country from a major constitutional crisis. He saved us from Jeremy Corbyn. And that means he saved the future of this nation. And I personally am very reluctant to be critical because we owe him this country’s prosperity and freedom.
But the idea of him coming back – I think he should bank the wins he’s got. Honestly, Boris, thank you, you saved the country. Don’t come back.
Today’s privileges committee report includes five photographs showing Boris Johnson at social gatherings in No 10 during Covid. Two of them are from 19 June 2020, when there was an impromptu birthday party for Boris Johnson in the cabinet room (for which he was fined). Two are from 13 November 2020, when there was a party to mark the departure of Lee Cain, the head of communications. And one is from 14 January 2021, when there was a leaving do for two private secretaries.
There are four photos from the 19 June event and five from the 13 November event in the Sue Gray report. The pictures in the privileges committee report are the same or similar, but the pixallation/blurring is less intense, which means the latest versions give a better sense of how little social distancing there was.
Here is one of the new ones from 19 June.
And here is one of the new ones from 13 November.
The Gray report did not include any pictures from the 14 January event. Here is the one from today’s report. Although it shows Johnson addressing someone via video, there are four open bottles of sparkling wine on the table, suggesting some degree of partying.
Like Labour (see 1.52pm), the Liberal Democrats want Rishi Sunak to commit to accepting the findings of the privileges committee inquiry into Boris Johnson. Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader, said:
It’s no surprise [Johnson is] doing his utmost to wriggle out of this inquiry given the questions being raised are this damning.
Rishi Sunak must immediately and publicly commit to backing the committee if the former prime minister is found to be guilty.
Johnson ally suggests Tory MPs should try to block privileges committee inquiry
Boris Johnson is now encouraging Tory MPs to block the privileges committee inquiry. An ally of the former PM told reporters:
The privileges committee has admitted that its central focus is the evidence of Sue Gray, who is now Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. This is beyond a farce and totally lacks credibility. All Conservative MPs should take note: apparently it’s okay to be put through a parliamentary process which is reliant on material provided by the leader of the opposition’s chief of staff.
My colleagues Jessica Elgot and Peter Walker were getting a similar briefing last night.
But the privileges committee inquiry into Johnson was set up on the basis of a vote by the Commons. To halt the inquiry, a new vote would be required. There is probably zero chance of Rishi Sunak tabling such a vote (when the Commons last voted to protect a Tory MP, Owen Paterson, from a disciplinary process, it did not end well) and, even if such a vote were to take place, MPs would almost certainly vote to let the inquiry continue.
Johnson’s allies claim Gray report discredited, with Nadine Dorries saying it was written to bring him down
Boris Johnson has not just released a statement in his own name about the privileges committee report. (See 12.45pm.) In it he said he would “leave it to others to decide how much confidence may now be placed in [Sue Gray’s] inquiry” given that she had now accepted a job with Labour.
In fact, Johnson is not just leaving it to others. His office has released to journalists statements from four Johnson-supporting Tory MPs all suggesting the evidence in the Gray report is now discredited. The four MPs are: Simon Clarke, the former business secretary, Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, Mark Jenkinson, a former whip, and Peter Bone, best known as a lifelong backbencher, but deputy leader of the Commons for a few weeks at the end of Johnson’s premiership when he was struggling to fill ministerial posts.
Clarke said:
Before the privileges committee can continue and rely on Sue Gray’s evidence, which will be pivotal, we need an urgent inquiry.
Bone said:
The privileges committee has today admitted its key witness is none other than Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff … This is a farce.
Jenkinson said:
How can the work Keir Starmer’s top political adviser be used against Boris like this? This cannot possibly be a fair process.
Dorries also recorded an interview with BBC Radio 4’s World at One in which she alleged Gray must have been motivated by a desire to bring down Johnson when she published her report. She said:
What was [Gray’s] motivation in writing that report? I think it can only be concluded that, given her new role, her new political role, it was to bring down the Brexit-supporting prime minister, Boris Johnson.
I don’t think her report is actually worthy of the paper it is is now written on.
Dorries also said Gray was possibly “having dual conversations with both Keir Starmer, and Labour, at the time she was writing that report” – although Dorries also said “this is to be uncovered yet” (which sounded like an admission that Dorries was guessing). Labour says it was not talking to Gray during Partygate. (See 10.30am.)
Dorries also claimed it would now be wrong for the privileges committee to use the Gray report and its findings as evidence against Johnson.
“They know there will be huge doubt and they will be discredited if they use that report to reach their conclusions”
Nadine Dorries tells #BBCWATO the Privileges Committee should no longer use the Sue Gray report in its Boris Johnson investigation pic.twitter.com/awFqv3iYgA
— The World at One (@BBCWorldatOne) March 3, 2023
This is all getting a bit Trumpian. No one has provided any evidence to show that any of the evidence published in the Gray report was inaccurate. And as for Gray’s conclusions, Boris Johnson accepted them when he made a statement to MPs after its publication.
Labour says privileges committee evidence ‘absolutely damning’ about Johnson
Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, has issued a statement in response to the privileges committee report. She says the evidence in it is “absolutely damning” about Boris Johnson, but most of what she says is about Rishi Sunak.
Rayner suggests that Sunak is complicit in Partygate, and she says he should stop Johnson from continuing to get his legal advice in relation to the funded by the taxpayer. She says:
The evidence in this report is absolutely damning on the conduct of Boris Johnson, not just in the crime but the cover up. All the while, Rishi Sunak sat on his hands, living and working next door but doing nothing to end the rule breaking.
While families up and down the country dutifully followed the rules unable to visit loved ones, missing weddings and funerals, Boris Johnson was repeatedly holding drinks and social events at the heart of government – events attended by the current prime minister.
If Rishi Sunak is to meet his promise of integrity and accountability, he must stop propping up his disgraced prime minister and his legal defence fund, fully endorse the committee’s recommendations and make clear that if Boris Johnson is found to have repeatedly misled parliament his career is over.
Boris Johnson occasionally joined drinks gatherings in No 10 press office on Friday evenings during Covid, report says
The privileges committee in its report says that Boris Johnson occasionally joined in drinks gatherings in the No 10 press office on Friday evenings. It says:
There is evidence that a culture of drinking in the workplace in some parts of No 10 continued after Covid restrictions began, and that events such as birthday parties and leaving parties for officials continued in No 10 despite workplace guidance on social distancing and regulations imposing restrictions on gatherings. In particular, the events that continued included Friday evening drinks gatherings in the press office area. Mr Johnson is said by witnesses to have seen Press Office gatherings on his way to the No 10 flat, and to have occasionally joined these gatherings when his attendance had not been planned. We conducted a site visit to No 10 Downing Street on 21 February 2023, at which we confirmed that a line of sight exists from the bottom of the stairs leading up to what was then Mr Johnson’s flat into the press office vestibule where these gatherings took place, and that for Mr Johnson to have been present in the vestibule during the gatherings he would have had to proceed from the staircase through a further intervening anteroom.
A footnote says that the information about Johnson occasionally joining these drinks gatherings comes from written evidence submitted to the committee and received on 6 February. It does not say any more about that evidence.
What privileges committee says about how Johnson may have misled MPs about Partygate
This is what the privileges committee says in its report about the evidence that Boris Johnson may have misled MPs about Partygate.
There is evidence that the House of Commons may have been misled in the following ways which the Committee will explore:
a) It may have been misled when Mr Johnson said on 8 December 2021 that no rules or guidance had been broken in No 10. The second permanent secretary and the Metropolitan police have already come to the conclusion that was not correct, including in relation to specific gatherings for which Mr Johnson asserted this was the case.
b) It may have been misled when Mr Johnson failed to tell the House about his own knowledge of the gatherings where the rules or guidance had been broken. That is because there is evidence that he attended them.
c) It may have been misled when Mr Johnson said on 8 December 2021 that he relied upon repeated assurances that the rules had not been broken. Initial evidence to us suggested Mr Johnson was assured by two individuals who had worked at No 10 at the time that they did not think the gathering of 18 December 2020 had broken Covid rules.
However, we note that:
i) Mr Johnson had personal knowledge about gatherings which he could have disclosed, although his personal knowledge about the gathering of 18 December 2020 may have been limited as he did not personally attend.
ii) We have received evidence that there was no assurance about any gathering’s compliance with the guidance that was in place at the time (as opposed to compliance with the Covid rules).
iii) The purported assurances were only about the gathering of 18 December 2020, not more generally about No 10’s compliance with the rules and guidance. We have received no evidence that an assurance was provided in relation to the specific gatherings of 20 May 2020, 19 June 2020, 13 November 2020, 27 November 2020 and 14 January 2021.
iv) The context for the initial purported assurance was in response to a media inquiry and the assertion that Covid rules were followed was initially developed as a media line to take.
v) The initial purported assurance came from the director of communications at No. 10, a special adviser appointed by Mr Johnson, not a permanent civil servant.
vi) The purported assurances consisted only of what those individuals themselves believed about the compliance of the gathering of 18 December 2020 with the rules.
Whether those who gave these purported assurances to Mr Johnson ever intended for him to rely upon them in the House, and whether it was appropriate for Mr Johnson to do so, is a question the Committee will want to consider.
d) It may have been misled when Mr Johnson gave the impression that there needed to be an investigation by the second permanent secretary to establish whether the rules and guidance had been broken before he could answer questions to the house. While repeatedly making that statement to the house he appears to have had personal knowledge that he did not reveal.
The committee’s inquiry is focusing on whether or not Johnson misled MPs in various comments he made in the chamber in response to questions about Partygate. Misleading MPs in the chamber can be a contempt of parliament, and the privileges committee is in charge of investigating contempt allegations.
Deliberately misleading the Commons is also a breach of the ministerial code, but that is not a matter for the committee, which is a parliamentary body. Breaches of the ministerial code are normally investigated by the No 10 standards adviser. But the adviser investigates serving ministers, not former ones.
Privileges committee rejects Johnson’s claim its findings based on Sue Gray’s report
The privileges committee has rejected claims that its report out today is based on the Sue Gray report. Boris Johnson and his supporters are claiming that it is and that, because Gray has accepted a job with Labour, her findings are discredited. (See 11.09am and 12.45pm.) A committee spokesperson said:
The committee’s report is not based on the Sue Gray report.
The committee’s report is based on evidence in the form of:
– material supplied by the government to the committee in November, including communications such as WhatsApps, emails and photographs from the official Downing Street photographer.
– evidence from witnesses who were present either at the time of the gatherings or at the time of preparation for Boris Johnson’s statements to parliament.
Sue Gray was present at neither and is not one of those witnesses.
Privileges committee says ‘reluctance’ of No 10 to hand over evidence when Johnson was PM held up inquiry
In its report the privileges committee says the “reluctance” of the government to provide it with unredacted evidence when Boris Johnson was still prime minister held up its inquiry. It says:
Our inquiry was initially held up by a reluctance on the part of the government to provide unredacted evidence …
The committee wrote to the government on 14 July, in the same terms as it wrote to Mr Johnson on that date, to request relevant materials in its possession. The government responded to our request by providing, on 24 August, documents which were so heavily redacted as to render them devoid of any evidential value. Some material had been redacted even though it was already in the public domain. Following further engagement between the committee and ministers and senior officials, which took some months, unredacted disclosure of all relevant material was finally provided on 18 November.
Boris Johnson claims he has been ‘vindicated’ by report, and criticises committee for relying on Gray’s evidence
Boris Johnson claims today’s report from the privileges committee has “vindicated” him.
In a statement just released, he said:
It is clear from this report that I have not committed any contempt of parliament. It is also clear that what I have been saying about this matter from the beginning has been vindicated.
It is clear from this report that I have not committed any contempt of parliament.
That is because there is no evidence in the report that I knowingly or recklessly misled parliament, or that I failed to update parliament in a timely manner.
Nor is there any evidence in the report that I was aware that any events taking place in No 10 or the Cabinet Office were in breach of the rules or the guidance.
Like any prime minister I relied upon advice from officials. There is no evidence that I was at any stage advised by anyone, whether a civil servant or a political adviser, that an event would be against the rules or the guidance before it went ahead. There is no evidence that I was later advised that any such event was contrary to requirements.
So, when I told the house that the rules and the guidance had been followed, that was my honest belief.
He said that, if he had known about “a matter of such importance” (ie, Partygate), he would have raised it with his team, and they would have raised it with him. He went on:
No such concerns were raised on either side and all my statements to the House of Commons were based on that understanding and advice.
And he criticised the privileges committee for “relying on” evidence provided by Sue Gray in her Partygate report. He said:
I note that the committee has emphasised their wish to be fair. They have made reference on no fewer than 26 occasions to a personage they bashfully describe as “the second permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office.”
That is of course, Sue Gray.
So it is surreal to discover that the committee proposes to rely on evidence culled and orchestrated by Sue Gray, who has just been appointed chief of staff to the leader of the Labour party.
This is particularly concerning given that the committee says it is proposing to rely on “the findings in the second permanent secretary’s report” as “relevant facts which the committee will take into account”.
I leave it to others to decide how much confidence may now be placed in her inquiry and in the reports that she produced.
Partygate: official said No 10 worried ‘about leaks of PM having piss up’ and added ‘I don’t think it’s unwarranted’
The privileges committee report is thick with footnotes providing evidence supporting what is said in the main text.
Here are three footnotes supporting the extract posted at 12.21pm.
Written evidence submission received 1 March 2023 [evidence not yet published but being disclosed to Mr Johnson]
WhatsApp message: [No. 10 official, 28/04/2021, 16:47:12] “[No 10 official]’s worried about leaks of PM having a piss up and to be fair I don’t think it’s unwarranted”
Written evidence submission received 1 March 2023 [evidence not yet published but being disclosed to Mr Johnson]
WhatsApp messages: [Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 06:54:30] “Have we had any legal advice on the birthday one?” […]
[Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 06:55:06] “Haven’t heard any explanation of how it’s in the rules”
Written evidence submission received 1 March 2023 [evidence not yet published but being disclosed to Mr Johnson]
WhatsApp messages: [No 10 official, 25/01/2022, 08:04:46] “I’m trying to do some Q&A, it’s not going well”
[Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 08:05:12] “I’m struggling to come up with a way this one is in the rules in my head”
[Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 08:05:20] “PM was eating his lunch of course”
[No. 10 official, 25/01/2022, 08:06:47] “I meant for the police bit but yeah as ridiculous as the cake thing is it is difficult”
[No. 10 official, 25/01/2022, 08:06:56] “‘Reasonably necessary for work purposes’”
[Director of Communications, 25/01/2022, 08:07:40] “Not sure that one works does it. Also blows another great gaping hole in the PM’s account doesn’t it?”
