Boris Johnson has presided over “widespread criminality” in the Downing Street partygate scandal and is unfit for office, Keir Starmer has said.
The Labour leader said the Prime Minister has “misled the public” over what he did and did not know about the events in Downing Street and should come before parliament to be held to account.
Starmer issued his strongest condemnation yet of the Tory leader after revelations that a senior civil servant in charge of maintaining standards in government is among the first group of people to receive a fixed-penalty notice.
Helen MacNamara, who was the director general of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office from 2018 to 2020, is reported to have received a £50 fine on Friday in connection with a leaving do held in the Cabinet Office on June 18 2020.
It is reported that it was her karaoke machine was used at the event.
She received a £50 fine on Friday, after police concluded she had broken Covid laws by attending a leaving party a Downing Street aide, Starmer called for the names of all senior officials fined for Downing Street parties to be made public.
The Labour leader said the Government was “taking the public for fools yet again” by refusing to acknowledge the seriousness of the fines.
He added: “I think it is very important that the Prime Minister makes sure that all those who are given fines, certainly in senior positions, are named."
“We seem to be going through this process where instant by instant, fines are coming out but the public are being left in the dark. The public complied with the rules. They are entitled to know who didn’t comply with the rules and what is going on.”
Several reports suggest people have also received fines linked with a gathering that took place on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral when advisers and civil servants gathered after work for two separate events on April 16 2021,
One was for former Downing Street director of communications James Slack and the second for a photographer, and they were later reported to have merged.
No 10 staff were said to have partied until the early hours of the morning in a seven-hour drinking session.
Starmer called on the Prime Minister to set the record straight after Troy minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, an ally of Johnson, claimed the partygate fines were not an important issue because of the Ukraine war.
He said: “The idea that he had no idea what was going on in his home and his office and he only gave answers because he was lied to by his officials is a case he needs to make. I would like to see him make that case because I don’t think he can.
"It is absolutely important that the Prime Minister is honest and accountable to Parliament. I shouldn’t have to say that.
“That has been a principle for a very long time. The idea that we are even debating whether it is all right for the Prime Minister to have lied about this shows just how far the standards have sunk under this Prime Minister.
“He needs to come to Parliament to be held to account. He has not only misled the public about this, he has presided over widespread criminality in his home and his office and that is why I am convinced he is unfit for office.”
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