Boris Johnson looks set to claim again that he thought he was following lockdown rules - despite literally being fined by police for breaking them.
The PM has been accused of “taking the public for fools” after he accepted a £50 fixed penalty notice last week, which means police reasonably believe he committed a criminal offence.
It comes after a poll by JL Partners for The Times today found of 2,000 Brits, 72% had a negative opinion of Boris Johnson - and the most commonly used word was “liar”.
Tomorrow he is set to give a 3.30pm statement to Parliament followed by a summit with Tory MPs where he will apologise.
Yet he will try to downplay the fact he has become the first ever Prime Minister fined for breaking the law, because the war in Ukraine is raging.
A close ally of the PM told The Times “mistakes were made”, but he would tell colleagues there was “always an exemption for work and people were working in close proximity in No10 for very long hours.”
The ally added: “There was always an exemption around work but the prime minister accepted mistakes were made.
“If you’re going from meeting to meeting and it’s something at 2pm in the afternoon, people wouldn’t particularly call that a party. You don’t tend to call that a party.
“If you go to something where you’re giving a speech, you’re not partying, so from his point of view, it’s his place of work, going to events in a work capacity, that’s the context in which these events happened.
“That is the way he will present it, and a lot of people understand this.”
The new defence is set to enrage nurses who did not socialise at work and families who lost loved ones, as gatherings were only allowed if they were “reasonably necessary for work”.
The PM was fined for a birthday party in the Cabinet Room of No10 and insiders expect he could be slapped with penalties for around three more events.
Barrister Adam Wagner, who has analysed Covid laws, tweeted: “Oh, come on. This is now taking the public for fools.
“Any indoor gathering not ‘reasonably necessarily for work’ was illegal.
“So you couldn’t have eg birthday parties, leaving drinks parties, Christmas parties.
“The fact that people were working together didn’t change that rule.”
The Prime Minister could have chosen to refuse to pay his fine and fight it in a magistrates’ court. If he had lost that battle, he would have been hit with higher costs and a formal criminal record.
Instead he said last week: “At the time, it did not occur to me that this might have been a breach of the rules.
“But of course the police have found otherwise and I fully respect the outcome of their investigation.”
Mr Wagner said the PM’s ally was “essentially promoting a version of the criminal law which is inaccurate and slanted towards his and his staff. And the investigation is still going on!
“Imagine if this PM stays in power and new criminal laws have to be implemented eg if a dangerous new COVID variant arises. Many people would take his cue and ignore those laws or interpret them in a way which allowed for any behaviour. The laws would become unenforceable.”
Boris Johnson will battle to get his premiership back on track tomorrow as he tries to convince Tory MPs to "move on" from the Partygate scandal.
In his first statement to MPs since he was fined last week, Mr Johnson plans to brush aside the controversy and try to crack on with business as usual.
With the prospect of more fines looming over him, the PM will instead try to focus on the Ukraine war and the Government's energy crisis.
In a busy week, he will highlight the cost of living crisis at home and a long-delayed trip to India.
The PM also plans to meet all Tory MPs tomorrow night for a “clear the air” discussion designed to shore up support as they return to Westminster after the Easter break.
But Mr Johnson faces a vote on Wednesday night on whether he will be referred to the Commons privileges committee, to investigate if he had misled MPs when he said “all guidance was followed completely” in No10.
If he was found to have broken the rules, he could be suspended from Parliament for a contempt of privilege.
It comes after a thinly-veiled reference to standards in politics by one of the Church of England's most senior clergymen, the Archbishop of York.
Using his Easter sermon on Sunday, Stephen Cottrell urged Britons to ask what sort of country they wanted to live in.
He said: "Do we want to be known for the robustness of our democracy, where those in public life live to the highest standards, and where we can trust those who lead us to behave with integrity and honour?"
Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg indicated the defence Mr Johnson may reach for on Sunday.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend programme, he said: "I think that when you hear what happened on the party for which he has been fined, many people would think that they were in accordance with the rules, when they were meeting people they were with every day, who happened to wish them a happy birthday, because that was the day it was.
"I think that was a perfectly rational thing to believe. Now the police have decided otherwise and the police have an authority. But he wasn't thinking something irrational or unreasonable, that that was within the rules."
But Mr Johnson was also accused over the weekend of not only attending a leaving party for his former communications chief Lee Cain on November 13, 2020, but leading the do and pouring drinks.
Downing Street declined to comment.
