Commons privileges committee says Johnson misled MPs and was ‘deliberately disingenuous’
This is what the report summary says about what the committee concluded.
We established that Mr Johnson:
a) had knowledge of the Covid Rules and Guidance
b) had knowledge of breaches of the Rules and Guidance that occurred in No. 10.
c) misled the House:
i) when he said that Guidance was followed completely in No. 10, that the Rules and Guidance were followed at all times, that events in No. 10 were within the Rules and Guidance, and that the Rules and Guidance had been followed at all times when he was present at gatherings
ii) when he failed to tell the House about his own knowledge of the gatherings where rules or guidance had been broken
iii) when he said that he relied on repeated assurances that the rules had not been broken. The assurances he received were not accurately represented by him to the House, nor were they appropriate to be cited to the House as an authoritative indication of No. 10’s compliance with Covid restrictions i
v) when he gave the impression that there needed to be an investigation by Sue Gray before he could answer questions when he had personal knowledge that he did not reveal.
v) when he purported to correct the record but instead continued to mislead the House and, by his continuing denials, this Committee
d) was deliberately disingenuous when he tried to reinterpret his statements to the House to avoid their plain meaning and reframe the clear impression that he intended to give, namely
i) when he advanced unsustainable interpretations of the Rules and Guidance to advance the argument that the lack of social distancing at gatherings was permissible within the exceptions which allowed for gatherings, and
ii) when he advanced legally impermissible reasons to justify the gatherings.
Key events
Commons privileges committee report into Boris Johnson now published
The Commons privileges committee report in Boris Johnson has now been published. It is here.
Privileges committee was biased against Boris Johnson, Tory MP Michael Fabricant suggests
There are not a lot of Tory MPs willing to publicly defend Boris Johnson anymore, but one of them is Sir Michael Fabricant, and on the Today programme he gave an interview suggesting the privileges committee was biased against Johnson.
Asked if he trusted parliament to judge Johnson, Fabricant replied:
I trust parliament but of course I’m not so sure that I trust the privileges committee.
Why do I say that? I actually sat in while Boris Johnson gave evidence. Now, you’ve got to understand that the committee sits in a quasi-judicial role. It’s there to dispassionately make a judgment.
I looked at the members of the committee. Some of them behaved in a totally proper way. Others were pulling faces, were looking heavenwards, were indicating they didn’t agree with what Boris was saying. You know, I was quite shocked actually by the behaviour of some of the members of the privileges committee.
On the subject of bias, Fabricant was then asked by the presenter, Nick Robinson, if he thought there was a link between his willingness to repeatedly defend Johnson and the fact that Johnson ensured he got a knighthood in the resignation honours published last week. Fabricant said he thought this topic would come up. But, in his reply, he implied that the knighthood was nothing to do with his pro-Johnson media appearances.
He told Robinson:
You know, I’ve served the people of Lichfield for 31 years. I’ve been on the government or opposition front benches for about nine years. I helped save, when there was an issue over tax the National Memorial Arboretum. I helped move HS2 from going by a housing estate. A number of people have said that they are surprised it took so long.
The Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Commons defence committee, has criticised Boris Johnson for the way he aa attacked Sir Bernard Jenkin, a Conservative member of the privileges committee, last night. Ellwood said that if Johnson had complaints about the process, he should have stayed on as an MP, and made a statement in the chamber, instead of resigning.
Ellwood told Sky News:
If Boris Johnson is unhappy with the committee’s findings, or indeed anybody on the committee, the personalities and so forth, he could easily have made a personal statement in the Commons – that’s the process – and presented his arguments prior to a full vote from the house, because it will be for the house to determine whether they support this publication or not.
He’s chosen to abandon all those possible avenues of approach and quit parliament in its entirety.
Now coming late in the day and saying ‘I’m unhappy with this individual’, this isn’t the process of somebody I believe is going to win the argument.
Ellwood also said he hoped the Johnson “pantomime” would soon end. He said:
Johnson’s confidence stemmed from the huge support he received from the party base. He was loved by members across the country but this is changing before our very eyes. There’s now disappointment, even anger that the party, the activists are left to pick up the pieces …
The longer this public pantomime drags on, the more Boris loses support from a once very loyal base … the more the prime minister’s plans and vision which was starting to gain traction are overshadowed, the public actually want us to get back to politics.
Sunak suggests MPs will debate motion asking them to accept privileges committee report on Johnson
Rishi Sunak was on visit in Harrow this morning, where he witnessed an immigration raid. Asked about the privileges committee report into Boris Johnson, he said he had not seen it yet and that it would not be right to comment.
Asked if he would give an interview later, after he had had time to read it, Sunak replied:
You are talking about a report that I haven’t seen and that no one else has seen. It wouldn’t be right to comment on it in advance of it coming out and being published.
These are matters for the House of Commons, and parliament will deal with it in the normal way that it does.
The reference to parliament dealing with this report “in the normal way that it does” suggests that ITV’s Robert Peston was right yesterday when he said that the government will table a motion asking the Commons to approve the privileges committee report, and that a plan to instead have a debate on a motion just saying the Commons has noted the report has been dropped.
I understand the government has “seen sense”, in words of one senior MP, and the motion put to MPs about the Privileges Committee report that finds Boris Johnson in contempt of parliament will NOT be an unamendable “take note” motion. It will be a normal motion approving and… https://t.co/P5Tbp41V95
— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 14, 2023
Sunak was also asked if he was “frustrated” by Johnson’s interventions in the past week. He replied:
No, I’m just getting on with delivering for the country.
Privileges committee set to publish report into whether Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Partygate
Good morning. In a post on his Substack blog last year Dominic Cummings, who was Boris Johnson’s chief adviser in No 10 and the strategist who did as much as anyone to help him win the 2019 general election, before he resigned and devoted his efforts to bringing Johnson down, wrote this about Johnson’s relationship with the truth.
He rewrites reality in his mind afresh according to the moment’s demands. He lies – so blatantly, so naturally, so regularly – that there is no real distinction possible with him, as there is with normal people, between truth and lies. He always tells people what they want to hear and he never means it. He always says: ‘I can’t remember’ when they remind him and is rarely ‘lying’.
Johnson misled MPs when he told them that the Covid rules and guidelines were followed in No 10 at all times. But last year, as the Partygate scandal was engulfing his administration and before he stood down, the Commons voted to get the privileges committee to conduct an investigation into whether he had done this deliberately (ie, lied), or at least recklessly. Today we will get its report.
Advance stories suggest the verdict will be grim. Yesterday the Times said the privileges committee would conclude that Johnson “deliberately misled parliament over the Downing Street parties scandal”. This morning the Financial Times says it will say he “committed ‘multiple’ contempts of parliament”. We’ll be able to read it for ourselves very soon, because it is due out at about 9am.
Because of the role he played in Brexit (many people think the leave campaign would have lost if he had not not leading it), Johnson has been one of the most consequential prime ministers of the modern era. Today’s report will significantly shape how he is remembered.
As Aubrey Allegretti reports, last night Johnson launched a fierce attack on one of the committee’s Tory members, accusing him in effect of hypocrisy.
Today we will be focusing almost exclusively on the report, and reaction to it. It is due out soon and later, during business questions in the Commons after 10.30am, Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, is expected to give details of when MPs will debate the report.
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