British MPs announced Thursday, April 21, 2022 their desire to open an investigation targeting Prime Minister Boris Johnson as part of Partygate.
This is yet another setback for the 57-year-old Conservative leader: far from turning the page on the crisis, he finds himself with a third investigation, after others in administrative and police proceedings in progress. And this despite its large majority in the House of Commons, its initial desire to oppose the procedure and then a maneuver to push it back, abandoned at the last minute.
The decision of the deputies, taken by consensus without even a vote, thus opens a new front in this affair, likely in the long term to force Boris Johnson to resign, a sign of the persistent unease within his troops in the face of the scandal.
On many occasions before Parliament, he assured that all the rules had been respected, an assertion contradicted by the fine imposed a week ago on Boris Johnson.
Boris Johnson faces resignation
The ministerial code provides that a minister who has knowingly misled Parliament must resign. The parliamentary inquiry will not begin until the police investigation is complete and senior civil servant Sue Gray, in charge of an internal inquiry, has delivered her final report.
A pre-report, denouncing “errors of leadership and judgement” has already given a glimpse of his appreciation of what was playing out behind the walls of Downing Street, contrasting with the sacrifices made by the British to fight the pandemic.
The motion driving parliamentary procedure “seeks to uphold the simple principle of honesty, integrity and telling the truth” in British political life, opposition Labor leader Keir Starmer told the origin of the text.
The case, which for a time took a back seat due to the war in Ukraine, was revived last week when he was fined for breaching anti-Covid restrictions while participating in a surprise drink for his 56th birthday in June 2020, becoming the first sitting UK head of government sanctioned for breaking the law.
On Tuesday, Boris Johnson repeated his “unreserved” apologies to MPs and Britons, saying it “didn’t occur to him” that this rally, lasting around ten minutes at most, according to him, ” may constitute a violation of the rules” then in force.