Your support helps us to tell the story
Boris Johnson has said he regrets apologising for the so-called partygate scandal over lockdown-era gatherings in Downing Street in a new interview.
Facing a grilling on ITV tonight, the former prime minister claimed the move had “inadvertently validated the entire corpus” as accusations were also levelled at officials who were “working very hard”.
He went on to defend the revellers, insisting that he does not think officials involved in the Westminster scandal “thought they were setting out to break the rules”.
Meanwhile, Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby announced she has pulled out of an interview with Mr Johnson at the Cheltenham Literature Festival after being told she could not make a recording or transcript of the talk, marking the second interview the former Tory MP has lost this week.
It comes as a group of indigenous Chagossians, Chagossian Voices, planned to stage a protest in Westminster, claiming they have been “consistently and deliberately ignored” by the UK government over discussions surrounding the handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, The Independent understands.
Sir Keir Starmer has defended the government’s decision in the face of significant backlash, claiming that the UK-Mauritius deal ensures continued security of the US-UK Diego Garcia military base.
