MPs investigating Boris Johnson’s conduct during the ‘partygate’ scandal warned on Friday that evidence ‘strongly’ suggested breaches of coronavirus guidelines would have been ‘obvious’ to the then Prime Minister and his aides .
The Cross-Party Privileges Committee reviews whether Johnson knowingly misled the House of Commons in its account of the scandal, which centered on unlawful gatherings in Downing Street and Whitehall during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Johnson is expected to provide oral evidence later this month.
In a report Posted on Friday, MPs noted that the House of Commons ‘may have been misled’ on a few occasions, such as on December 8, 2021, when Johnson told MPs he was ‘relying on repeated assurances that the rules had not been broken”.
‘The evidence strongly suggests that the breaches of guidance would have been evident to Mr Johnson at the time he was at the rallies,’ the MPs wrote. ‘There is evidence that those advising Mr Johnson on what to say to the press and the House themselves had difficulty in asserting that certain gatherings were within the rules.’
The committee, which began its investigation in June 2022, will produce its final findings following oral testimony from Johnson, the deputies added.