The UK Privileges Committee report into Boris Johnson's role in "partygate" has been published

For several of the No. 10 gatherings, as we have detailed, Mr Johnson has argued that it did not occur to him that they were in breach of Rules or Guidance. This is despite the fact that he must have been aware of the number of people attending, of the absence of official work being done, and of the absence of social distancing without visible mitigations. In each case he argues that he genuinely believed the events were covered by a work-related exemption to the Rules. He also argues that efforts to socially distance and the putting in place of some mitigations where possible (albeit somewhere other than where the gatherings were taking place) were sufficient for compliance with the Guidance. With regard to the Rules: the gathering had to be essential or reasonably necessary for work purposes. A workplace ‘thank you’, leaving drink, birthday celebration or motivational event is obviously neither essential or reasonably necessary. Mr Johnson is adamant that he believed all of the events which he attended and of which he had direct knowledge were essential. That belief, which he continues to assert, has no reasonable basis in the Rules or on the facts. A reasonable person looking at the events and the Rules would not have the belief that Mr Johnson has professed. That is plain from the fact that around the UK during the period of pandemic restrictions these events did not take place.

We have concluded above that in deliberately misleading the House Mr Johnson committed a serious contempt. The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the Prime Minister, the most senior member of the government. There is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House. He misled the House on an issue of the greatest importance to the House and to the public, and did so repeatedly. He declined our invitation to reconsider his assertions that what he said to the House was truthful. His defence to the allegation that he misled was an ex post facto justification and no more than an artifice. He misled the Committee in the presentation of his evidence.

Our final conclusion is in relation to sanction. Although Mr Johnson’s resignation as an MP renders it impossible for a sanction of suspension to be imposed, we draw attention to the fact that before the events of Friday 9 June we had provisionally agreed to recommend a suspension long enough to engage the provisions of the Recall of MPs Act. In the light of Mr Johnson’s further contempts, we put on record that if he had not resigned his seat, we would have recommended that he be suspended from the service of the House for 90 days for repeated contempts and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process, by:

• Deliberately misleading the House
• Deliberately misleading the Committee
• Breaching confidence
• Impugning the Committee and thereby undermining the democratic process of the House
• Being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee.

In view of the fact that Mr Johnson is no longer a Member, we recommend that he should not be granted a former Member’s pass.