MPs fear Johnson will be issued with new fines relating to lockdown gatherings, while local elections on May 5 will give voters a chance to give their own verdict. “It will no doubt continue, with multiple further embarrassments to come.” “Thursday will be very embarrassing for many MPs,” said one former cabinet minister. However the prime minister is not in imminent danger in spite of Harper’s comments, most Tory MPs are sticking with Johnson for now, albeit with some nervousness. Many Tory MPs left the chamber long before Johnson finished answering questions. He urged Conservative MPs to topple the prime minister “to bring decency, honesty and integrity back into our politics”. In a powerful intervention, listened to in silence by Tory MPs, Starmer claimed Johnson’s behaviour was intended to “drag everyone else down with him” and to make voters think all politicians were the same.
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Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, called Johnson’s partygate statement - which was wrapped up with an update on the situation in Ukraine - “a joke” and said the prime minister was “a man without shame”. This argument is Johnson’s defence against claims he misled MPs that rules were not broken. He insisted last December that “all guidance was followed completely”, but this month police issued the prime minister with a £50 fine after he attended a surprise birthday party in Number 10 when Covid restrictions were in place in June 2020.īut the prime minister insisted “it didn’t occur to me then or subsequently” that his attendance at the event in the cabinet room would breach Covid lockdown rules. Johnson, making a statement to MPs after the Easter break, struck a contrite tone, repeating his assertion that “people have a right to expect better of their prime minister”. “I think he is no longer worthy of the great office he holds,” he said.
Harper told a highly charged chamber that many Tory MPs would be forced to reluctantly back Johnson in a subsequent vote.
Johnson is scheduled to fly to India on Wednesday on a trade and diplomatic mission, leaving behind a Westminster swirling with criticism of his conduct and a key vote looming.Ĭommons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has granted a debate on Thursday on whether MPs want to refer Johnson to the Commons privileges committee, to consider whether he deliberately lied to the House. The UK prime minister on Tuesday offered a “wholehearted apology” for breaching Covid lockdown, but Mark Harper, a former Tory chief whip, said Johnson was asking his MPs to “defend the indefensible”. © Neil Hall/EPA/Shutterstockīoris Johnson was accused by a senior Conservative MP of being “no longer worthy” of high office, as MPs prepared to vote on whether he deliberately misled the House of Commons in the partygate scandal. Boris Johnson denies he deliberately misled MPs and his allies expect the Commons to reject holding a committee probe because the Conservatives have a working majority of almost 80.
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