Boris Johnson has insisted he believed a gathering in No 10’s garden during the first lockdown would be a “work event” after being accused of lying to Parliament by Dominic Cummings.
He has categorically denied anyone warned him the event was a party and broke lockdown rules.
The Prime Minister was questioned during a visit to a hospital in north London, his first public appearance since last week.
“When I went out into that garden I thought I was attending a work event,” he told broadcasters.
Mr Johnson reduced his public contacts after Downing Street said a family member tested positive for coronavirus.
Despite official guidance no longer requiring vaccinated contacts of coronavirus cases to self-isolate, Mr Johnson pulled out of a visit last Thursday and had not been seen in public since.
And Mr Johnson has denied lying to Parliament over allegations of rule-breaking parties in Downing Street.
Asked if he had, he told broadcasters: “No. I want to begin by repeating my apologies to everybody for the misjudgments that I’ve made, that we may have made in No 10 and beyond, whether in Downing Street or throughout the pandemic.
“Nobody told me that what we were doing was against the rules, that the event in question was something that … was not a work event, and as I said in the House of Commons when I went out into that garden I thought that I was attending a work event.”
Mr Cummings said he is willing to “swear under oath” that Mr Johnson had lied when claiming he did not know in advance that the May 20 2020 event would be a “drinks party”.
In the Commons last week, the Prime Minister admitted spending 25 minutes at the gathering but insisted he had believed “implicitly” that it would be a work event.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told Times Radio: “The suggestion that he lied is nonsense. He’s made it very clear to the House of Commons that questions on this… that he thought it was a work event.”
But the Cabinet minister was pressed on what would be expected if Mr Johnson had lied to the Commons.
“If it’s lying, deliberate in the way you describe, if it’s not corrected immediately, it would normally under the ministerial code and the governance around Parliament be a resigning matter,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Downing Street denied that Mr Johnson lied to Parliament but seemed to accept it would be a resigning matter if he “knowingly” misled the House of Commons.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “You have seen us say repeatedly that it is untrue that the Prime Minister was warned about the event (on May 20, 2020) in advance and you have got the Prime Minister’s statement to the House.”
Asked if Mr Johnson would quit if he misled Parliament, the spokesman said: “The guidance is clear, the ministerial code is very clear on this point when it comes to knowingly misleading the House and the Prime Minister abides by that, and we fully support it.”
