Boris Johnson should resign if he is fined by the Metropolitan police for lockdown breaches, despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Labour has said, after the Guardian revealed the first tranche of fines are expected to be issued imminently.
It is understood the Met is expected to issue about 20 fines on Tuesday related to the most straightforward cases, though more are expected to follow. A source said the fines would probably be imposed on “low-hanging fruit” – an indication that Boris Johnson is unlikely to be among them, as he has denied breaking the law.
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said Johnson should resign if he were fined and so should his chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who has also been issued with a police questionnaire about lockdown gatherings.
Asked if it was the right moment to trigger a leadership contest, Rayner said: “I think it’s important the support that we’ve given to the Ukrainian people, and we’ve been very clear in supporting the government in that and I think that’s a very serious situation and that it’s right that we’ve been united on that.
“But that doesn’t negate the prime minister from lying to the British public and if he thinks it does then he’s sadly mistaken.”
She said Johnson had compounded the seriousness by potentially misleading the House of Commons. “There’s breaking the rules, and then there’s trying to lie about it, because that makes it even worse, because the British public have to have faith,” she said.
“I think, to be honest, if the prime minister said at the time, OK, there was a gathering, I was at this party, I probably shouldn’t have been there, hold my hands up. But he said there was no parties.
“Then he says, ‘I didn’t realise it was party,’ when it was found out that he was actually there. So it shows a pattern of behaviour where the prime minister is not telling the truth to the British public. That’s very serious.”
Two months ago the force began examining material from the Whitehall inquiry carried out by the senior civil servant Sue Gray into multiple alleged breaches of Covid rules.
The Met sent questionnaires to more than 100 members of staff and aides, including Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie; the head of the civil service, Simon Case; and the prime minister’s former principal private secretary Martin Reynolds.
Police are investigating 12 separate events in 2020 and 2021, six of which Johnson is said to have attended. Scotland Yard said it had obtained more than 300 photographs and 500 pages of documents showing what Gray’s inquiry believes to be potential rule-breaking.
Images include photos taken at parties and those taken from security cameras showing when people entered and exited buildings.
The education minister Will Quince said gatherings that took place across Downing Street and Whitehall during Covid restrictions “shouldn’t have happened” but declined to say Johnson should go if he broke the law.
“I entirely understand why you asked that question. I understand the huge public interest,” he told Sky. “I completely understand the considerable upset caused – the events that took place shouldn’t have happened.
“But I hope you’ll understand that both as an education minister, but more importantly, as there’s ongoing live Metropolitan police investigation, it’s just not appropriate that I comment.”
