by Guy Faulconbridge and Kylie MacLellan
LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office issued an apology to Queen Elizabeth II on Friday following new revelations about parties at 10 Downing Street amid a COVID-19 lockdown, which has were held on the eve of the funeral of her husband, Prince Philip.
The information, which adds to a litany of disastrous revelations for the head of government, now contested even within the conservative majority, comes from the Daily Telegraph.
According to the British daily, two drunken evenings were organized on April 16 – the day before Prince Philip’s funeral where the images of the Queen, alone in her mourning at Windsor Castle, had symbolized the harshness of health restrictions -, by members staff in Boris Johnson’s office.
Councilors and civil servants celebrated the departure of the director of communications, James Slack, and one of the Prime Minister’s personal photographers.
Thirty people, according to the Telegraph, reputed to be close to power, feasted in the gardens of 10 Downing Street, as well as in the basement of the building.
The newspaper reports that staff members went to a neighborhood supermarket to buy alcohol, stored in a suitcase. Wine was reportedly spilled on the carpets of the official residence and the swing of Boris Johnson’s youngest son was broken.
The Prime Minister was that day at Checkers, his holiday residence in Buckinghamshire, and had not been invited to these farewell parties, his spokesman said on Friday.
“It is deeply regrettable that this happened at a time of national mourning, and 10 (Downing Street) has apologized to the Palace,” the spokesman told reporters.
James Slack, now deputy editor of the Sun, also apologized in a statement for a feast that “should not have taken place at this precise moment”, and for “the anger and pain caused”.
“UNTENABLE”
At the time, the British were banned from gathering indoors and only six people were authorized for outdoor gatherings, under containment rules dictated by the British government to stem the wave of contaminations at COVID-19.
On Wednesday, an increasingly weakened Boris Johnson apologized to Parliament for attending another party on May 20 in the gardens of 10 Downing Street, saying he thought it was a meeting of work.
The opposition, and now members of the Conservative Party from which Boris Johnson emerged, believe he will have to resign if it is found that he broke the rules and misled Parliament.
An internal investigation is underway under the authority of Sue Gray, number two of the “Cabinet Office”, which is responsible for coordinating the action of the government.
“It’s sad to say, but the Prime Minister’s position has become untenable,” said Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen. “The time has come to leave the stage.”
Foreign Minister Liz Truss, presented as a serious candidate for the succession of “BoJo”, conceded “real mistakes”, while calling for turning the page on this “partygate”.
“I think we have to look at the overall position that we’re in as a country: the fact that he (Boris Johnson) got Brexit done, that we’re recovering from COVID-19,” she said. to journalists.
“He apologized. (…) We have to move on,” she added.
At half mast in the polls, the British Prime Minister, who rejected calls for resignation, is under threat from two scenarios.
Either the opposition requests a “vote of confidence”, and some of the majority deputies join it, causing its downfall.
Either 54 of the 360 Tories who sit in Parliament take the initiative of each writing a letter of defiance to the chairman of the “1922 committee”, the parliamentary group of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, and there again resignation would be necessary.
According to the Telegraph, 30 letters have already been signed.
(French version Sophie Louet, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)