Boris Johnson committed a “serious contempt” of Parliament and repeatedly misled UK lawmakers about rule-breaking parties in Downing Street during the pandemic, according to a long-awaited probe which despite its largely unsurprising findings still shocked with the severity of its indictment of the former prime minister.
Yet how the current premier Rishi Sunak responds is likely to have major implications for the prospects of both men. Their long-running animosity behind the scenes has boiled over into an ugly public spat in recent weeks and shredded any lingering sense of unity in the governing Conservative Party.
As things stand, the findings of the seven-strong, majority-Tory parliamentary committee which investigated Johnson’s behavior are confined to a report for Members of Parliament to vote on. That will happen on Monday, but a major question for Sunak is how to frame the question: will MPs be asked to endorse the findings, or merely acknowledge that the report was published?
If it is the former — and MPs give a full-throated endorsement of the panel’s verdict on Johnson — the former prime minister’s hopes of a political comeback would be severely dented. It would undermine his argument that he was unfairly pushed out, or as he has repeatedly said, the victim of a “witch hunt.”
There’s also the question of how Sunak himself will vote. On Thursday his spokesman, Max Blain, said the prime minister hadn’t yet had a chance to read it, but would “take time” to understand its findings.
Having resigned as an MP before the report was published, and before MPs could vote on it, Johnson was likely hoping he could avoid formal sanction. That would be the case if Sunak frames the vote around acknowledging publication of the report rather than its findings on Johnson.
The government’s initial reaction to the report illustrates the dilemma facing Sunak. Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt said the terms of the vote would be amendable if enough MPs support it, and Sunak’s spokesman confirmed that the government wouldn’t instruct Tory MPs how to vote. But both declined to confirm what the initial wording would be.
It leaves Westminster in waiting mode over what political fireworks to expect next week.
“Partygate” — the media nickname for the pandemic rule-breaking that led both Johnson and Sunak to receive police fines — still casts a long shadow over the government and the ruling Tories. The party’s poll lead, forged on the back of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, crumbled under the weight of scandal as public trust in Johnson and his ministers collapsed.
Johnson was ultimately ousted by an unprecedented number of ministerial resignations but he has always blamed Sunak for triggering the rush — even though it was then Health Secretary Sajid Javid who kicked things off.
Even though it was Johnson who set up the parliamentary probe into partygate, he has since accused Sunak of not stepping into protect Johnson from its conclusions. More recently, he blamed Sunak for not ensuring that some of his allies and acolytes received resignation honors. That row blew open last week when Sunak belatedly published the final list, after Johnson had received the probe findings.
Johnson’s resignation has effectively entwined the scandals — while triggering a backlash against Sunak’s Tories and again engulfed them in blanket media coverage.
Thangam Debbonaire, the opposition Labour Party’s shadow Leader of the House of Commons, on Thursday said the report calls into question the validity of Johnson’s honors list. She described it as “a lawbreaker and a liar rewarding his cronies” and called on Sunak to “cancel these dishonorable honors.”
It’s not clear if Sunak will try to draw a line under all of it by facilitating a final verdict on Johnson’s premiership. He risks further angering Johnson if he does, or angering members of his party who are tired of Johnson’s antics — as well as the families of Covid victims and what polls show is a large swathe of voters — if he doesn’t.
—With assistance from Alex Wickham.
