To the question “Did Boris Johnson lie to Parliament about the parties that took place in his Downing Street office during the Covid lockdown?” “, British lawmakers – whose response was eagerly awaited – decided: Boris Johnson “deliberately deceived” the British Parliament, concluded Thursday, June 15 a parliamentary commission of inquiry. This report had already prompted the former British Prime Minister to resign with a bang on Friday from his mandate as an MP.
Boris Johnson for his part denounced a desire for “political assassination”, according to a press release. “The commission has not found a single shred of evidence” against us, Boris Johnson said in a long, extremely aggressive statement, reiterating that he believed he had done nothing wrong and denouncing the “lie” and “sick” findings of the committee.
The ex-Conservative leader, who is about to turn 59, was warned last week of the damning conclusions of these fourteen months of investigation into the parties in Downing Street during the anti-Covid confinements. No longer sitting in the House of Commons, Boris Johnson no longer risks much. The report states that the commission would have recommended a ninety-day suspension if Boris Johnson had not slammed the door. A very severe sanction that would probably have triggered a by-election.
The document, which must still be submitted to the vote of the deputies, nevertheless requests that it be deprived of access to the premises of the Parliament, generally granted to former prime ministers.
“No precedent”
“There is no precedent of a prime minister being found guilty of willfully misleading the House,” the commission concludes. “He has misled the House on a matter of the utmost importance to the House and to the public, and he has done so repeatedly.” The report also denounces Boris Johnson’s very virulent resignation letter, with the accents of Donald Trump, as an “attack on British democratic institutions”.
Some Tory MPs close to Boris Johnson have already called for a vote against the report, while opposition Labor number two Angela Rayner likened the ex-leader to “a baby who throws his toys out of the pram because ‘He got caught’. Boris Johnson “should never again be allowed to run for any term of office”, reacted the association of victims of Covid-19.
An uncertain capacity for harm
A year after his resignation from Downing Street, where he spent three years marred by scandals, his resounding departure prevents any return to power of the ex-journalist and mayor of London, pending a possible re-election in the legislative elections scheduled for next year. .
Above all, it has revived the internal wars within the Conservative Party, in power for thirteen years, where Boris Johnson has influential allies. He retains an important aura with the base for having won a historic victory in the 2019 legislative elections, then carried out Brexit, when the exit from the European Union seemed to be at an impasse.
If he remains at the center of political and media attention, his real capacity for nuisance remains uncertain: neither his attempts to return to power nor those to lead slings against the government on certain projects have been successful for a year.
And only two deputies have imitated him and resigned from Parliament for a week, while some feared a wave of mass departures weakening the government of Rishi Sunak.