It is now many months since people started to warn me about the intentions of the Privileges Committee. They told me that it was a kangaroo court. They told me that it was being driven relentlessly by the political agenda of Harriet Harman, and supplied with skewed legal advice \u2013 with the sole political objective of finding me guilty and expelling me from parliament.
Boris Johnson's response to the privileges committee report.It is now many months since people started to warn me about the intentions of the Privileges Committee. They told me that it was a kangaroo court. They told me that it was being driven relentlessly by the political agenda of Harriet Harman, and supplied with skewed legal advice – with the sole political objective of finding me guilty and expelling me from parliament.
I knew exactly what events I had attended in Number 10. I knew what I had seen, with my own eyes, and like the current PM, I believed that these events were lawful. I believed that my participation was lawful, and required by my job; and that is indeed the implication of the exhaustive police inquiry.
This is rubbish. It is a lie. In order to reach this deranged conclusion, the Committee is obliged to say a series of things that are patently absurd, or contradicted by the facts. We didn’t believe that what we were doing was wrong, and after a year of work the Privileges Committee has found not a shred of evidence that we did.
The Committee cannot possibly believe the conclusions of their own report – because it has now emerged that Sir Bernard Jenkin attended at least one “birthday event”, on Dec 8 2020 – the birthday of his wife Anne – when it is alleged that alcohol and food were served and the numbers exceeded six indoors.
It is preposterous to say, as the Committee does, that people were just too scared to mention concerns to their superiors. Really? Was Simon Case too scared to draw his concerns to my attention? Was Sue Gray or Rishi Sunak? Perhaps the craziest assertion of all is the Committee’s Mystic Meg claim that I saw the Dec 18 event with my own eyes. They say, without any evidence whatever, that at 21.58pm, on that date, my eyes for one crucial second glanced over to the media room as I went up to the flat – and that I saw what I recognised as an unauthorised event in progress.
It is a measure of the Committee’s desperation that they are trying incompetently and absurdly to tie me to an illicit event – with an argument so threadbare that it belongs in one of Bernard Jenkin’s nudist colonies.
Ireland Latest News, Ireland Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Boris Johnson full statement attacks 'lying' Privileges CommitteeIn a damning verdict the committee said he would have faced a recommended suspension of 90 days from the Commons
Read more »
Read in full: Partygate report finds Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs and was facing 90-day suspensionRead the full report from The Privileges Committee which found former prime minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament over whether Covid lockdown rules were broken in Downing Street gatherings.
Read more »
Boris Johnson will wait as long as two years before staging political comeback, allies claimBoris Johnson is likely to step back from frontline politics and will bide his time before making a comeback in two years’ time, his allies believe RichardVaughan1 reports
Read more »
Take responsibility? It's easier for Boris Johnson and his supporters to indulge in conspiracyBoris Johnson alone is responsible for his decision to flee Parliament It is a cowardly decision he made rather than face a vote of the full House of Commons 🖋️ KateMaltby for ipaperviews
Read more »
Boris Johnson's partygate defences examined as report to rule on whether he misled parliamentBoris Johnson was given ‘repeated assurances’ by aides that no rules were broken Parties were within the rules and ‘firmly within the work exception’ 🔎 eleanormia explores key points from the former PM's defence and how the report may consider them
Read more »
Boris Johnson makes last-minute representations to privileges committeeBoris Johnson has made eleventh-hour representations to the privileges committee before it publishes a report which is expected to find that he deliberately misled parliament.
Read more »