British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose job hangs in the balance due to the Downing Street party scandal during lockdowns, defended himself before MPs on Monday after the publication of a report that denounced “leadership failures”.
“I understand and I will fix it,” he assured, affirming “regret” the many parties held in 2020 and 2021 in Downing Street, where his offices and official residence are, when the anticovid rules prohibited it and many Britons could not even say goodbye to their loved ones.
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“I know what the question is: ‘Can this government be trusted to deliver?'” he said. “Yes, it can be done,” he assured, defending his work in favor of Brexit and against the coronavirus and promising administrative changes in his services.
This outraged the opposition, which does not stop asking for his resignation, accusing him of having lied when he assured that there were no parties. He is “a man without shame,” Labor’s Keir Starmer launched.
After investigating a total of 16 social events, from Christmas celebrations to birthday parties or farewell, held in government offices against anti-covid rules, senior official Sue Gray concluded that “there were failures of leadership and judgment by different parties in Downing Street and in the Cabinet Office at different times”. “Some of the meetings in question represent a serious failure to meet standards,” she stressed.
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“Reduced version
However, the report is very vague about the events, given that several of them are being investigated by the police and the police asked that only a “minimal” reference be made to avoid interference. This delayed the delivery and publication of the report, which had to be modified to release a shortened “version”. And for that reason, it does not detail who organized and participated in the parties, how they developed or how much the prime minister knew.
The opposition denounced this bias and several deputies asked Johnson if he was present at one of the events, held on November 13, 2020 in his official apartment. But the prime minister, threatened for weeks by a possible motion of censure in his Conservative Party – which, if he were to take away the leadership of the formation, would also dislodge him from the British government- hid behind the ongoing police investigation not to answer.
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The British political class, and especially Conservative MPs contemplating joining the rebellion against Johnson, nervously awaited the conclusions of Gray’s internal investigation, which also reported “excessive alcohol consumption inappropriate in any workplace.” However, the prime minister asked to wait now for the police’s conclusions, which may take weeks or months.
Threat of motion of censure
The so-called “partygate”, or party scandal, has snowballed and threatens to overwhelm Johnson. Since December, in an incessant trickle of leaks, the press has published information on more than a dozen of these allegedly illegal events, some of which Johnson had to admit to having participated albeit striving to evade responsibilities.
This drew the ire of some of his own MPs, such as his predecessor Theresa May, who asked him on Monday if he hadn’t read his own rules, didn’t understand them or thought they didn’t apply to him and his aides.
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Johnson, 57, came triumphantly to power in 2019 promising to deliver a Brexit that May had been wrestling with for years. He thus seduced a large number of Labor strongholds in the post-industrial north of England.
But now it is precisely the young conservative MPs elected in these traditionally left-wing constituencies who are rebelling most strongly against their leader.
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If they now manage to add some of the most veteran deputies, they could launch an internal motion of censure. For it they need to send at least 54 letters, 15% of the 360 deputies of the government majority, to the committee in charge of managing the parliamentary group. Some have already been received, but their number is kept secret until that threshold is reached.
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AFP
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