The report on the festivals celebrated in Downing Street during the pandemic it was spread mutilated and censored, but with enough depth charges to shake the British Prime Minister’s government, Boris Johnsonwhich seems more fragile than ever.
(Read here: Boris Johnson launches diplomatic arsenal to avoid motion in the United Kingdom)
At the request of the police, the author of the investigation, senior official Sue Gray, was forced to leave out of the document her specific findings on the alleged violation of anticovid rules at the Prime Minister’s headquarters.
(Also: Boris Johnson refuses to resign under pressure for illegal parties)
However, despite acknowledging “extremely limited”, Gray is explicit enough in the twelve pages of her report to launch a harsh criticism of the operation and ethics of Downing Street.
In them, he denounces the “lack of leadership and good judgment” by “different parties” both in the prime minister’s office and in the Cabinet Ministry (equivalent to the Presidency) regarding some social gatherings that “should never have been allowed” .
“In the context of the pandemic, when the government was asking citizens to accept far-reaching restrictions on their lives, some of the behavior around these social gatherings is hard to justify,” says Gray.
(You may be interested: Johnson celebrated his birthday party despite the restrictions)
For the investigator, with a reputation for being impartial and relentless in her investigations, “some of these meetings represent a serious breach, not only of the standards expected of those who work in the nucleus of the Government, but also of those that were then expected of the entire population.”
It also draws attention to the “excessive consumption of alcohol” within the Executive, which it considers “inappropriate for a workplace”.
Without going into details about them, he puts a total of 16 celebrations under his magnifying glass, of which twelve are the subject of the police investigation. And that’s where the situation gets complicated. Johnson.
One such “event” took place on November 13, 2020, presumably in the very apartment of the prime minister and his wife, Carrie. Difficult to argue, in this situation, that he was not aware of or authorized certain parties.
Also presenting serious complications for the prime minister is the famous party on May 20, 2020, where his personal secretary invited people to “bring their own drink” and which he has already admitted to attending for a while.
(Read here: Johnson responds to party report: ‘I get it and I’ll fix it’)
Johnson fires back with promises of reform
Following the publication of the report, Johnson appeared before Parliament, where he had to listen to a flurry of calls to resign, some from his own Conservative ranks.
It once again resorted to the exercise of contrition that it had already carried out a few weeks ago – “I apologize, but I know that it is not enough” – and announced a reform of the internal functioning of its internal offices as a sign that it has learned the lessons left by the so-called “Partygate”.
Stating that he “accepts the findings of Gray’s report”, he added that he will not wait for the end of the police investigation and will make changes to the “complicated and fragmented structures” of Downing Street and the Cabinet Office.
Among those reforms, he announced that he will create the function of a “permanent secretary” who will supervise the operation of the prime minister’s offices, although he did not offer more details.
The promises were far from satisfying an opposition that once again demanded Johnson’s resignation en bloc, in a very hot session and in which even the spokesman for the Scottish nationalists, Ian Blackford, was expelled for accusing the prime minister of lying.
The comfortable majority that the “tory” leader enjoys in the House of Commons means that the only way to achieve Johnson’s departure – discounting a voluntary resignation – is an internal rebellion among the conservatives themselves.
And that was the appeal launched by the head of the opposition, Labor Keir Starmer, asking the “Tory” deputies to convene a motion of internal confidence on their leader.
“The eyes of this country are on them,” said Starmer, while calling on them “to rid the country of a prime minister totally unworthy of his responsibilities.”
There are still not many Conservatives who have dared to express their rejection in public, but in Parliament on Monday one more did, Andrew Mitchell, although several dropped that the Prime Minister’s explanations did not convince them.
One of those dissenting voices was precisely his predecessor in Downing Street, Theresa May, who wondered if Johnson had not read the rules, did not understand them or simply decided to ignore them.
Although each day that passes as prime minister is a triumph for Johnson, his outlook does not seem clear in the short term.
The police assured on Monday that they have more than 300 photographs and 500 pages of documents, provided by the internal investigation of Sue Gray, from which they will choose the people they will question to clarify whether the anticovid rules were violated, a crime punishable by fines. .
The image of Johnson testifying before the police, or finally being sanctioned for participating in parties, could end up finishing off a prime minister who is already on the ropes.
Threat of motion of censure
Since December, in an incessant trickle of leaks, the press has published information on more than a dozen of these allegedly illegal events, in some of which Johnson had to admit to having participated, although making an effort to evade responsibility.
This did not prevent the entire opposition and some of their own deputies from calling for the controversial leader’s resignation. Johnson, 57, came triumphantly to power in 2019 promising to deliver a Brexit that his predecessor, Theresa May, had been wrestling with for years.
He thus seduced a large number of Labor strongholds in the post-industrial north of England and won the largest Conservative majority since the 1980s.
But now it is precisely the young deputies of his party elected in those constituencies that traditionally voted for the left who are rebelling most strongly against their leader.
To launch a motion of internal censure they need to send at least 54 letters, 15 percent of the 360 deputies of the government majority, to the so-called 1922 Committee, in charge of managing the parliamentary group. Your number is kept secret until that threshold is reached.
AFP and EFE
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