Markus Andrews

Rishi Sunak has said Boris Johnson was “right to apologise” for attending a Downing Street lockdown party as he offered a lukewarm endorsement for the embattled prime minister.The chancellor, who chose to skip Mr Johnson’s grilling over the partygate scandal at PMQs on Wednesday, instead travelling to Devon to discuss a jobs announcement, added in a tweet several hours after the event that he supported the PM’s “request for patience” as Sue Gray conducts her investigation.Rather than offer support to the beleaguered prime minister in the House of Commons, Mr Sunak – a favourite to replace Mr Johnson at No 10 according to some pollsters – visited a company purifying pharmaceutical drugs.Following speculation over why he had not publicly supported Mr Johnson earlier in the day, the chancellor said on Twitter: “I’ve been on a visit all day today continuing work on our £PlanForJobs as well as meeting MPs to discuss the energy situation.”MPs including Labour’s Karl Turner noted it was “hardly a ringing endorsement”.The chancellor took until after 8pm to share the message. Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg told the BBC’s Newsnight programme the delay was because the chancellor had had a “busy day”.Other senior Tories have expressed more full-throated support for the PM.Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who is also seen as a potential leadership contender, tweeted: “The Prime Minister is delivering for Britain – from Brexit to the booster programme to economic growth.“I stand behind the Prime Minister 100% as he takes our country forward.”It comes after a bruising day for Boris Johnson. Earlier this week, a leaked email showed around 100 No 10 staff were invited to a drinks gathering in Downing Street’s rose garden while the country was still subject to strict Covid lockdown restrictions.At PMQs, Mr Johnson apologised for attending the 20 May 2020 party – but insisted he thought it was a “work event”.After days of stonewalling questions, the prime minister told MPs he acknowledged the “rage” of the public “with me and with the government I lead when they think in Downing Street itself the rules are not being properly followed by the people who make the rules”.Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary Dominic Raab told ITV it was a “daft question” when asked whether he would run again for the Tory leadership.“I’m fully supportive of this Prime Minister and I’m sure he will continue for many years to come,” he said.Home Secretary Priti Patel and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng are reported to have expressed their support in a Whatsapp group for Tory MPs.Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: “I completely understand why people feel let down. The PM did the right thing by apologising.“Now we need to let the investigation complete its work. We have so much to get on with including rolling out boosters, testing and antivirals – so we can live with Covid.”Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told Times Radio: “I think the prime minister was very contrite today, he apologised and he took full responsibility.” More

Boris Johnson’s international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan has flown out to Delhi to launch negotiations on a potential post-Brexit trade deal with India.The cabinet minister is hoping to land an “ambitious” free trade agreement with the country – despite the government’s failure to get the Indian government interested in a full-fledged deal.Efforts to get a speedy, comprehensive post-Brexit agreement with India were thwarted last year when the country agreed to only an “enhanced partnership” on health, technology and vaccine development.Ms Trevelyan said the talks beginning on Thursday were “a golden opportunity to put UK businesses at the front of the queue as the Indian economy continues to grow rapidly”.The trade secretary claimed a free trade agreement with India would “show how the deals we negotiate will boost the economies across all nations and help level up all regions of the UK”.But the Best for Britain campaign group has said claims of prospective deal should be “taken with a large pinch of salt” – given that “historically India starts rather more trade talks than it finishes”.In May 2021 India agreed to restart talks with the EU on a comprehensive free trade agreement, but progress in entering formal negotiations is said to have slowed since then.The Department for International Trade (DIT) said the UK wants an agreement that slashes barriers to trading with India’s economy – including cutting tariffs on exports of UK-made cars and Scotch whisky.Scotch whisky and British cars currently face huge duties of 150 per cent and 125 per cent respectively in India. A deal has the potential to almost double UK exports to the country, the DIT claimed.Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is believed to have made easier immigration to the UK a key condition for any new trade agreements.But Mr Johnson said last week that he had ruled out relaxing immigration rules to tempt India into signing a trade deal after a Conservative MP protested at the idea of the country being held “to ransom”.The prime minister denied there was any plan to ease visa requirements, telling Brexiteer MP Sir Edward Leigh in the Commons: “We don’t do free trade deals on that basis.”Mr Johnson’s government remains under pressure to achieve new, post-Brexit trade deal with major nations following a series of roll-over deals – copying the terms the UK already had when it was inside the EU – before and after leaving the bloc.The US has shelved talks, despite a recent visit to Washington by Ms Trevelyan, while farming bodies and environmentalists have attacked the deal struck with Australia for damaging British agricultural exports and lowering standards. More

The Metropolitan Police is facing demands for an explanation of how officers guarding 10 Downing Street could have been unaware of the “bring your own booze” garden gathering.Baroness Jones is to write to the force and the national police watchdog to ask whether officers witnessed the event on 20 May 2020, and if so whether they reported it.“This garden party raises big questions for the Met Police, as their officers must surely have monitored this gathering via their security cameras and been aware of the rules in place at the time,” the Green Party peer told The Independent.“Did [Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary] Martin Reynolds consult with Met Police officers about the Covid restrictions, or inform them of the event? I will ask for this to be included in the follow-up to my previous complaint about police inaction.”Access to Downing Street is controlled by the Met’s parliamentary and diplomatic protection command, while close protection officers are also assigned to Boris Johnson and senior ministers.A spokesperson for the force declined to comment, and said the positioning and role of officers in the prime minister’s residence was a security matter.Baroness Jones lodged a previous complaint in December, which asked how the “extensive police presence at 10 Downing Street” had responded to an alleged Christmas party on 18 December 2020.“If there was an unlawful gathering taking place at 10 Downing Street, then the police must have known,” the complaint said.It called for officials to determine whether officers had “aided and abetted a breach of the law” by allowing access to the social gathering, and to investigate whether there was a “broader culture of police officers excusing unlawful activity by government ministers and their staff”.The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has referred the matter to the Metropolitan Police Directorate of Professional Standards.The watchdog said the complaint was “invalid”, because in order for a complaint to be considered, complainants must have been “adversely affected by the alleged conduct or its effects”.“There was nothing within the referral to indicate [Baroness Jones] was physically present or nearby when officers stationed at Downing Street allegedly failed to enforce Covid rules,” a spokesperson added. “Nor is there a suggestion that [she was] physically present or sufficiently nearby when the effects of the officers’ alleged actions occurred.“Having fully assessed the referral we have decided it is invalid and we have returned it to the Metropolitan Police to handle as it determines would be appropriate.”The IOPC said it had reminded the force of its obligation to refer cases “if evidence were to come to light that anyone serving with the police may have breached standards of professional behaviour or committed a criminal offence, linked to the alleged party”. More

Boris Johnson was today facing open revolt from within his own party, after his apology for attending a Downing Street party during lockdown failed to quell backbench anger.The prime minister’s claim that he thought the garden drinks in May 2020 was a work event was greeted with derision from the opposition benches in the House of Commons, with Sir Keir Starmer branding it “ridiculous” and calling on Johnson to resign. The chair of the Commons Standards Committee, Chris Bryant, accused the PM of treating voters as “stupid”.The Labour leader’s demand was echoed by Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, who led a phalanx of at least 14 Holyrood Tories calling on Johnson to go.And there were calls for his resignation from senior Tory backbencher William Wragg as well as vocal Johnson critic Sir Roger Gale, who described the PM as a “dead man walking” politically.One former minister told The Independent that MPs “in double figures” had submitted letters of no confidence in the prime minister to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady – with some letters going in after the PM’s dramatic apology in the House of Commons.But with 54 letters needed to trigger a confidence vote, many Tories said Johnson had succeeded in “buying time” until the release of a report by Whitehall mandarin Sue Gray into the string of alleged parties at No 10.Several said that a negative verdict in the Gray report, expected as early as next week, could spell the end for Johnson.Former minister Dan Poulter told The Independent: “Should the PM be found to have actively misled parliament or if he faces criminal sanction – or both – then his position would be untenable.”But Mr Ross said Mr Johnson should not wait for Ms Gray’s verdict.After meeting the PM following his public apology, the Scottish Tory leader said: “He is the prime minister, it is his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions.“I don’t think he can continue as leader of the Conservatives.”Mr Wragg, who chairs the Commons’ Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, said the prime minister’s position was now “untenable”.“A series of unforced errors are deeply damaging to the perception of the party,” he told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme.“I don’t think it should be left to the findings of a civil servant to determine the future of the prime minister and indeed who governs this country.”Mr Johnson faced one of the most high-stakes moments of his political career at prime minister’s questions in the Commons, following the publication of an email from his principal private secretary Martin Reynolds inviting up to 100 Downing Street staff to “socially distanced drinks” at a time when strictly-enforced Covid restrictions allowed meetings of only two people outside the home.He told MPs he had spent 25 minutes thanking staff in the sun-drenched rose garden, but insisted: “I believed implicitly that this was a work event.”Mr Johnson acknowledged the “rage” felt by voters who believe that Covid rules were not being followed by those who were imposing them on the rest of the country.And he said that “with hindsight” he now accepted he should have ordered staffers back inside and “found some other way to thank them”.But he added: “I should have recognised that even if it could be said technically to fall within the guidance, there are millions and millions of people who simply would not see it that way, people who have suffered terribly, people who were forbidden from meeting loved ones at all inside or outside, and to them and to this house I offer my heartfelt apologies.”Sir Keir dismissed the PM’s apology as “worthless” and his explanation as “so ridiculous that it’s actually offensive to the British public”.Branding Mr Johnson “a man without shame”, Sir Keir told the Commons: “The party is over, prime minister. The only question is: will the British public kick him out, will his party kick him out, or will he do the decent thing and resign?”In response to a hail of demands for his removal from the opposition benches, Mr Johnson pleaded for MPs to await the outcome of the Gray report.While there were some cheers from Conservative MPs as Mr Johnson entered the chamber, a pall of gloom settled over the Tory benches as the PM delivered his apology.While a handful of MPs earned guffaws of derision from the opposition benches by pitching soft questions about dishwashers or bus services to the prime minister, the majority sat through the 40-minute grilling in stony silence.Afterwards, Tory MPs welcomed Mr Johnson’s apology but said he had not drawn a line under the affair.One former minister said Mr Johnson would be in the clear if Ms Gray concluded attending the party was “an error of judgement” – but added: “If she decides he has broken the ministerial code, by misleading the house, then he will be in a very, very difficult position indeed.”Another MP with an apparently safe southern seat said that – in the wake of the North Shropshire and Chesham and Amersham by-election defeats – “no seat is safe” while Mr Johnson remains in office.“It’s s***,” the MP said, “my constituents don’t want him to apologise – they want him to be honest and hard-working, but he can’t ever do that of course”.One senior MP told The Independent: “There is immense concern, and frankly the excuse doesn’t get anywhere near washing. There are a lot of meetings going on discussing what to do about this and when.”Sir Roger Gale was one of few MPs to speak publicly, saying: “I’m sorry, you don’t have ‘bring a bottle’ work events in Downing Street, so far as I’m aware. And you don’t have ‘bring a bottle’ work events that are advertised or invited by the prime minister’s private secretary.“I think the time has come for either the prime minister to go with dignity as his choice, or for the 1922 Committee to intervene.”Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey wrote to Metropolitan Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick to urge her to interview Mr Johnson under caution as part of a full police investigation into the 20 May event.“The police must reassure the public that justice will be done and there isn’t one rule for them and another for Boris Johnson and his colleagues in Downing Street,” said Sir Ed.Downing Street insisted that Mr Johnson had not received the email invitation from Mr Reynolds and had not instructed him to send it out. But the PM’s press secretary gave no other explanation of how he became aware the event was taking place.Johnson’s former top aide Dominic Cummings dismissed his claim that he thought the gathering was a work event as “bulls***”.With around 40 staff believed to have drunk wine, beer and gin and eaten party food from a long table in the No 10 garden, the event was “obviously totally social not work (unlike all the meetings in the garden) – no way ‘technically within the rules’”, tweeted the PM’s former right-hand man – who previously said he warned against the party while in Downing Street. More

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has called on Boris Johnson to resign after the prime minister admitted attending a No 10 drinks party during the height of lockdown restrictions.Just hours after Mr Johnson’s apology to MPs, Mr Ross said his position was “no longer tenable”, saying: “I spoke to the prime minister this afternoon and I set out my reasons an I explained to him my position”.Mr Ross, who is also an MP at Westminster, added he would write to the 1922 committee of backbench Conservative MPs to register his lack of confidence in the prime minister, according to the BBC.“He is the prime minister, it is his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions,” the Scottish Tory chief added.“I don’t think he can continue as leader of the Conservatives.”His call was echoed by William Wragg, a Tory MP who chairs the Public Affairs and Constitutional Affairs Committee, who said the prime minister’s position was now “untenable”.“A series of unforced errors are deeply damaging to the perception of the party,” he told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme. “I don’t think it should be left to the findings of a civil servant to determine the future of the prime minister and indeed who governs this country.”Earlier, veteran Tory backbencher Sir Roger Gale also told the broadcaster: “Politically, the prime minister is a dead man walking.”“We know that the prime minister spent 25 minutes at what was quite clearly a party,” he added. “That means that he misled the House”.While Mr Johnson’s apology to the House of Commons appears to have won him time, Conservative MPs at Westminster remained deeply unhappy with his handling of the party scandal.Several made clear they believe that an adverse finding from Whitehall mandarin Sue Gray could cost him his job. Her report into the row could be published as early as next week.One senior Tory told The Independent that MPs in double figures have now submitted letters of no confidence in the prime minister to the chair of the 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady – with some even going in this afternoon following Mr Johnson’s apology.Sir Graham needs 54 letters before ordering a vote of no confidence in which a majority of Tory MPs could oust the prime minister.Several MPs said that they did not expect the threshold to be reached before the publication of Sue Gray’s report, with many waiting to see the findings of the Whitehall mandarin before deciding whether to act.The executive of the 1922 Committee – an influential body representing backbench Tories – is understood to be meeting this afternoon.One former minister told The Independent: “There is immense concern, and frankly the excuse doesn’t get anywhere near washing. There are a lot of meetings going on discussing what to do about this and when.”Sir Roger Gale said: “The prime minister has said what he has said at the despatch box: he spent 25 minutes at what he described as a work event,” said Sir Roger.“Well, I’m sorry, you don’t have ‘bring a bottle’ work events in Downing Street, so far as I’m aware. And you don’t have ‘bring a bottle’ work events that are advertised or invited by the prime minister’s private secretary.“The prime minister said on 8 December from the despatch box that he was reliably assured that there were no parties – well, we now know there was at least one party and probably more, and that at least one of them, the one he spent at least 25 minutes at, he attended.“I think the time has come for either the prime minister to go with dignity as his choice, or for the 1922 Committee to intervene.”Welsh secretary Simon Hart acknowledged the “frustration and hurt” felt by voters over the reports of parties at No 10.“I don’t live on a different planet,” the cabinet minister told Welsh journalists in a regular briefing. “The frustration and the hurt and indignation and the incredulity that emerging stories like this produce. I’ve got, like everyone, family and friends asking me these questions. We have to get to the bottom of this.”Asked if he could still trust the PM, Mr Hart said: “I know – because I know the guy – he is as anxious as anyone to have this resolved. “I’ve got to know him sufficiently well to be able to say with confidence I trust him. He is the leader of the government, I’m a member of that and as far as I’m concerned he’s in a very similar position to me in wanting this to be resolved and the facts to be out there and people to make judgements we can all rely on.”Former minister Dan Poulter said he was “pleased the prime minister has apologised” but said Mr Johnson’s position would be “untenable” if he was found to have misled parliament.Dr Poulter told The Independent: “It is not much consolation to those of us who cared for patients on the frontline of the NHS and saw them die of Covid.“I hope the inquiry is conducted very quickly and should the PM be found to have actively mislead parliament or if he faces criminal sanction – or both – then his position would be untenable.”Tory backbencher Bob Blackman, who yesterday said people were “rightly furious” over the alleged parties, told The Independent: “The apology is welcome but we will have to see what the outcome of the investigation is.”The Harrow East MP declined to say whether Mr Johnson would have to go if the Gray report found against him: “There’s no point having a report if you are going to pre-empt what it says.” More

A man was fined £100 for standing in the street the same day Downing Street staff allegedly held a lockdown-breaking garden party.Nuradeem Mohammed, 28, was stopped by police in Ealing Road, London, in the early hours of 20 May 2020 and accused of being in a gathering of more than two people “without reasonable excuse”, the Evening Standard reports.The UK was at that time two months into its first national lockdown and Covid rules meant people were only allowed to meet one other person from outside their household in an outdoor public place while keeping a distance of at least two metres.Mohammed, of Hayes, west London, was convicted of breaching the Health Protection regulations and ordered to pay a £100 fine plus £134 in court costs and fees within a month, according to court documents seen by the Standard.It has now emerged that later the same day, Number 10 staff, including the prime minister himself, attended a gathering in the rose garden of Downing Street despite the strict lockdown restrictions.According to a leaked email, Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary Martin Reynolds invited more than 100 members of staff to the “bring your own booze” event.Boris Johnson on Wednesday finally admitted he had attended the gathering – but insisted he thought it was a “work event”.After days of stonewalling questions, the prime minister told MPs he acknowledged the “rage” of the public “with me and with the government I lead when they think in Downing Street itself the rules are not being properly followed by the people who make the rules”.“And though I cannot anticipate the conclusions of the current inquiry, I have learned enough to know there were things we simply did not get right and I must take responsibility,” he said at prime minister’s questions.The gathering would have taken place just five days after another party, at which the prime minister and his wife Carrie Johnson were pictured having cheese and wine with officials in the garden.The Metropolitan Police said it was “in contact” with the Cabinet Office relating to alleged breaches of the Health Protection Regulations in No 10 on 20 May 2020. More

Boris Johnson’s claim he believed the Downing Street drinks party he attended during lockdown was a work event has been described by lawyers as “nonsense” that would be “laughed out of court”.Adam Wagner, a barrister and expert in Covid law, said the PM’s apology in the House of Commons was “carefully worded and obviously lawyered” but “doesn’t make sense at all”.And Raj Chada, a defence lawyer, said he could not see how the prime minister’s explanation of his actions had “any legal basis”.Mr Johnson admitted attending a “BYOB” gathering in the garden of No 10 during England’s first lockdown in May 2020, when social contact with more than one person was banned. But he claimed he “believed implicitly that this was a work event” – despite Martin Reynolds, a senior No 10 official, inviting 100 people to what he described as “socially distanced drinks”.The news of the party – one of a number of gatherings allegedly held in Downing Street during the pandemic – has sparked anger among MPs and bereaved relatives of Covid victims.Speaking in Commons before he faced Keir Starmer in Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Mr Johnson acknowledged the public’s “rage” but insisted he thought his actions could have been “technically” within the rules.He told MPs: “No 10 is a big department with a garden as an extension of the office which has been in constant use because of the role of fresh air in stopping the virus.“When I went into that garden just after six on May 20, 2020, to thank groups of staff before going back into my office 25 minutes later to continue working, I believed implicitly that this was a work event.”“With hindsight I should have sent everyone back inside, I should have found some other way to thank them, and I should have recognised that — even if it could have been said technically to fall within the guidance — there would be millions and millions of people who simply would not see it that way.”Human rights lawyer Adam Wagner gave a withering assessment of the PM’s “carefully worded and obviously lawyered” apology – pointing out the use of the words “believed”, “with hindsight” and “technically”.Writing on Twitter, the barrister said the PM was implying that “millions of people are wrong in their interpretation” and suggested he was only issuing an apology to “save face”.He added: “This is very much about his personal liability – he is implicitly denying he knew what the event was, had seen the email or had anything to do with it. “Because here’s the key point: on the wording of email (’bring your own booze’) this couldn’t technically have been a work event.“Although, he might say that even a boozy party for staff was ‘reasonably necessary for work’ to thank staff for their hard work during the pandemic. I doubt that would hold weight given the govt guidance at the time discouraging workplace gatherings.“Also, how do you believe something implicitly? Is the point that he didn’t really understand the rules he had set? Or not particularly engaged with them?“The ultimate point is that at the time if anyone had asked the prime minister or health minister whether it was lawful to have a social work gathering outdoors for 100 with alcohol and food they would have answered with a very hard ‘no’. “This is all ex post facto face saving.“It is proper nonsense and doesn’t make any sense at all given what the government were telling everyone else to do at the time.“Also, if any photos or video appear and it looks like a party then the whole defence of ‘I didn’t know it was a party’ goes out of the window.”At the time of the party, Covid regulations meant people could only meet one other person from a different household outdoors while following social distancing guidelines.Government guidelines also said workers “should try to minimise all meetings and other gatherings in the workplace”, and “reduce the number of people you spend time with in a work setting”.They added: “Only absolutely necessary participants should attend meetings and should maintain 2m separation throughout.”Yet Mr Reynolds’ email to No 10 staff said: “After what has been an incredibly busy period we thought it would be nice to make the most of the lovely weather and have some socially distanced drinks in the No10 garden this evening.“Please join us from 6pm and bring your own booze!”Mr Chada, the head of the criminal defence department at Hodge Jones and Allen, said of Mr Johnson’s statement: “If any client had tried to use this, it would have been laughed out of court. The cross examination would have been brutal: do civil servants/politicians normally ‘bring a bottle’ to work events?“I cannot see that his defence has any legal basis as you were meant to be working from home if you could.”Just 10 days before the party, Mr Johnson had addressed the public to thank them for “put[ting] up with restrictions on freedom” and for having “shown the good sense to support those rules overwhelmingly.” More

A Conservative MP has claimed a No 10 drinks party held during lockdown restrictions was organised to “welcome back” Boris Johnson after his recovery from Covid.The North Dorset backbencher Simon Hoare added that he understood the event was also a “way of saying thank you” to cabinet minister Dominic Raab for “holding the fort” during the prime minister’s absence.However, a spokesperson for Mr Raab said it was “categorically untrue” and that did not attend the event and “wasn’t invited”.It comes after the prime minister issued an apology in the Commons and admitted attending the event on 20 May, 2020 in the Downing Street rose garden when over 100 Downing Street staff were invited to “bring your own booze”.Facing calls to resign, Mr Johnson acknowledged the “rage” of the public and MPs, but also attempted to claim that he thought it was a “work event” — a suggestion that was ridiculed by the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.Speaking on Sky News, the Tory MP Mr Hoare said “I don’t know” when asked if Mr Johnson can survive the latest revelations about rule breaking and make it to the next general election amid growing Conservative anger.However, he added: “As I understand it, and this is a third-hand understanding, this was a party organised to say, in the first instance, welcome back prime minister.“He had been in hospital, I think I’ve got the timeline right, and recuperating at Chequers. It was also a way of saying thank you to Dominic Raab for holding the fort”.He added: “So whether the prime minister knew it was taking place or whether everybody just humped out of the shrubbery and said ‘Surprise’, I don’t know”.Pressed on the comments from Mr Hoare, the prime minister’s press secretary sidestepped questions over whether the gathering was arranged as a “welcome back” for the prime minister, who was admitted to hospital on 6 April, 2020 after contracting Covid.He did not return to Downing Street until 27 April after spending time recuperating at his Chequers residence.Referring to the investigation by Sue Gray, the senior civil servant tasked with probing alleged rule breaking in government buildings, the press secretary added: “It’s a matter for the independent review”.But Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, seized on the comments from Mr Hoare, saying if Mr Raab “also attended this party he needs to come clean”.“The public has a right to know if any other senior Tories were at this party while the rest of the country was locked down,” she insisted.“Rather than running away hundreds of miles, the Chancellor, who lives next door, should finally answer questions of how he could have been unaware of boozey parties immediately outside his own office. Time for them all to come clean.”However, a spokesperson for Mr Raab said: “It’s categorically untrue — he wasn’t invited and didn’t attend”. More