In a shocking and scathing report, a parliamentary committee has found that former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson “deliberately misled” MPs over his own breach of Covid-19 lockdown rules. According to media reports, the committee also criticized Johnson’s behavior and recommended that he be denied a pass to enter parliamentary property.
The committee’s report said Johnson was in “serious contempt” of Parliament when he claimed the rules were always followed following the so-called “Partygate” affair that exposed unauthorized gatherings at Downing Street.
According to a report published in CNN, the conclusion is essentially a landmark warning from a former prime minister who, less than four years ago after winning a landslide election victory, had a political career scuttled by a series of scandals. . The Privileges Committee wrote in its report published on Thursday, “The contempt was more serious because it was committed by the Prime Minister, the most senior member of the government. No precedent has been found for the Prime Minister intentionally misleading the House.”
What did the committee say?
Members also wrote, “He misled the House, and did so repeatedly, on an issue most important to the House and the public.” Johnson abruptly resigned as an MP on Friday, overturning a committee recommendation that he be punished enough to call a by-election in his district.
But in light of his resignation, the study added a more serious recommendation: Johnson was denied a former member’s pass to enter parliament, an old convention for former lawmakers. The investigation by the committee, most of whom are from Johnson’s Conservative Party, has ended. Johnson and some of his colleagues have criticized the committee as a “kangaroo court”. But this may not end the Partygate saga. Lawmakers must now vote to accept the report’s findings, a potentially humiliating process that will undoubtedly highlight differences between Johnson’s parliamentary colleagues and current prime minister Rishi Sunak, who recently distanced himself from Johnson, according to CNN. Tried to do.
The main subject of the investigation was Johnson’s actions during the COVID-19 pandemic when he served as prime minister and was discovered by police to have broken his own guidelines. The inquiry examined whether Johnson deliberately misled legislators in the House of Commons when he informed them that he was unaware of the parties, as opposed to a police investigation and a separate parliamentary inquiry into the parties themselves.
‘Report’s findings undisputed and unanimous’
Its conclusions were undeniable and unanimous. The report said, “We think that on the balance of probabilities it is highly unlikely that Mr Johnson … could have actually believed at the time of his statement to the House that the rules or guidance were being complied with.” The report reprimands Johnson for criticizing the impartiality of the committee and finds that both his testimony and his resignation from the House of Commons constitute multiple instances of contempt of parliament.
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Calling Johnson’s language “vitriolic” and “wholly unacceptable,” the committee wrote in its report, “This attack on a committee that carries out its work from a democratically elected House amounts to an attack on our democratic institutions. ” Johnson engaged in a verbal battle with Sunak, his eventual successor and former Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister). He and two of his colleagues announced their intention to resign from the House of Representatives over the weekend, necessitating three challenging by-elections for a government that is now wallowing in the polls.
(With ANI inputs)