Boris Johnson has accepted he misled Parliament over COVID-19 rule-breaking parties in Downing Street, but denied he did it on purpose.
The former prime minister has published a 52-page defence of his actions ahead of a grilling by MPs on Wednesday. In it, he said his assurances to MPs that lockdown rules had been followed were made in “good faith”.
Mr Johnson faces being suspended or even expelled from Parliament, if MPs decide he deliberately misled them.
A group representing families of COVID-19 victims said his claim to have acted in good faith was “sickening”, and it was “obvious” he deliberately misled MPs. The privileges committee is expected to quiz him for several hours on Wednesday in a televised hearing.
The committee, chaired by veteran Labour MP Harriet Harman, but with a Tory majority, has previously said Mr Johnson may have misled Parliament on multiple occasions.
It also said it has evidence which “strongly suggests” COVID-19 rule-breaking in Downing Street would have been “obvious” to the then prime minister.
In his defence document, prepared by his taxpayer-funded legal team, headed by top barrister Lord Pannick KC, Mr Johnson said he had not “intentionally or recklessly” misled MPs, and would “never have dreamed of doing so”.
He said he accepted assurances he gave the Commons on several occasions after the Partygate scandal emerged in late 2021 that rules had been followed had turned out to be wrong. But he believed at the time that events he attended in No 10, including to bid farewell to departing staff, abided by restrictions because they were “essential for work purposes”.
He added that it “remains unclear to me” why he was fined for attending a gathering in No 10 for his birthday in June 2020. He said he relied on officials to advise him about other events in the building he did not attend, and there was nothing “unreasonable” about that.
Boris Johnson was fined for attending a birthday gathering in the Cabinet Room in 2020 and the committee is expected to publish its verdict on Mr Johnson by the summer.
It has assembled evidence including written statements from 23 witnesses, official diaries, emails between officials, and WhatsApp messages handed over by the former prime minister’s legal team.
It will publish a “core bundle” of documents on Wednesday morning, ahead of Mr Johnson’s hearing later in the day.
In his defence document, Mr Johnson claimed the committee had not found evidence he intentionally misled MPs.
He said the “only exception” were assertions made by his former top aide Dominic Cummings, whom he said was “discredited” and was motivated by personal animosity.
Mr Cummings hit back on Twitter, saying a drinks party in the No 10 garden attended by Mr Johnson had been deemed to have broken the rules by police, with officials fined for attending.
The committee has published photos of Boris Johnson attending events – including this one in January 2021
In an interim report published earlier this month, the committee said Mr Johnson’s statements to MPs, as well as his performance at COVID-19 press conferences, show that he understood what the rules were.
In a statement on Tuesday, the committee said Mr Johnson’s written submission contained “no new documentary evidence”.
In his document, Mr Johnson attacked the conduct of the inquiry, accusing the committee of being “highly partisan” and going against precedents set by previous similar inquiries.
The committee has decided that whether he intended to mislead MPs is not relevant to what it has been charged with investigating: whether it was stopped from doing its job by his statements to MPs.
But if they find that it was, then his intentions will be considered when deciding any punishment they recommend.
A finding that he deliberately misled MPs is likely to attract the strongest sanction. Another option is they conclude he misled Parliament “recklessly”.
In his submission, the former prime minister hit out at this reasoning, saying the idea of misleading MPs recklessly was an “entirely novel concept”.
The full House of Commons will have to approve the committee’s final recommendations, as well as any sanctions. Conservative MPs will be given a free vote, meaning they will not be told how to vote by party managers.
The possible punishments range from ordering him to apologise to suspending him from the Commons.
If he is suspended for more than 10 days, this could trigger a by-election in his constituency – although suspensions of this length have been rare in the past.
