Claim that UK PM Johnson lied about lockdown party is nonsense, deputy says
LONDON: A claim by a former senior adviser to Boris Johnson that the British prime minister lied to parliament about not knowing about a lockdown party in Downing Street is nonsense, his deputy said on Tuesday (Jan 18).
Asked if the prime minister's premiership was over if it
could be proved that he had lied to parliament, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic
Raab said: "Look, the suggestion that he's lied is nonsense.
"He's made it very clear to the House of Commons, took
questions on this, that he thought it was a work event," he told Times
Radio.
Johnson last week apologised to parliament for attending a
"bring your own booze" gathering in the garden of Downing Street on
May 20, 2020, but said he had thought it was a work event.
Dominic Cummings, an architect of Britain's departure from
the European Union and a former senior adviser to Johnson who left government
under acrimonious terms in November 2020, said that Johnson had agreed that the
drinks party should go ahead.
"Not only me but other eyewitnesses who discussed this
at the time would swear under oath this is what happened," he said on his
blog.
Asked if Johnson should resign if he had lied, Raab said he
would not speculate about hypotheticals.
Johnson's apology came after ITV News published an email
invitation from Johnson's Principal Private Secretary Martin Reynolds to a May
20, 2020 event, asking attendees to "bring your own booze".
Cummings said that after Reynolds was told to cancel the
invite by at least two people, Reynolds checked with Johnson if it should go
ahead.
"The PM agreed it should," Cummings said in his
blog.
Senior civil servant Sue Gray is investigating about a dozen
allegations of rule-breaking by Johnson, his team and officials at his 10
Downing Street official residence. Senior ministers have said people needed to
wait for the conclusion of her inquiry.
However, the scandals have seen Johnson's personal ratings
plummet and support for his Conservative Party has sunk in opinion polls. A
growing number of Conservative lawmakers have said he should now resign.
"I will be calling for action against anyone who has
been found to have broken the rules," junior health minister Maria
Caulfield said on her website.
"It is clear that there was a culture inside Number 10
where even if rules were not technically broken, the spirit of the rules were,
and this is completely unacceptable."
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