Britain's ex-prime minister Boris Johnson denounced the report recommending his exclusion from parliament as 'rubbish'. /Toby Melville/Reuters
Britain's ex-prime minister Boris Johnson denounced the report recommending his exclusion from parliament as 'rubbish'. /Toby Melville/Reuters
Boris Johnson should be excluded from parliament for misleading British parliament over rule-breaking COVID-19 lockdown parties at his office, a UK committee said in a damning report which the former prime minister described as "rubbish".
In the extensive document, the privileges committee - the main disciplinary body for UK lawmakers - said Johnson had wilfully mislead parliament on several occasions when he was asked about gatherings in Downing Street during lockdowns.
The committee also accused Johnson of being "complicit in a campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation," adding that the former leader should be denied automatic access to parliament
In response Johnson, one of Britain's most well-known and divisive politicians, repeated his innocence and condemned the report as "rubbish", "a lie" and "a charade", accusing committee members of waging a vendetta against him.
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The report, detailing six events held at Downing Street, was put together by a committee from both members of the governing Conservatives and opposition Labour Party.
"We conclude that in deliberately misleading the House (of Commons) Mr Johnson committed a serious contempt," the committee said. "We recommend that he should not be entitled to a former Member's pass," it added, referring to a pass which enables former prime minister's to gain access to parliament.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returns to his Oxfordshire home after running. Peter Cziborra/Reuters
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returns to his Oxfordshire home after running. Peter Cziborra/Reuters
The report says that Johnson tried to undermine the parliamentary process by purposefully misleading the House of Commons - the lower house of the UK's parliament - and the Committee, by breaching confidence, challenging the committee and by being complicit in a campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation.
It said that if Johnson were still a member of parliament, it would have recommended his suspension from the House for 90 days. Johnson resigned from the Commons last week after seeing an advance copy of the report, calling the inquiry a "witch hunt."
He has apologized for his conduct during the pandemic but repeatedly denied deliberately misleading parliament, saying he took advice from his aides that his office were following the rules.
"I believed, correctly, that these events were reasonably necessary for work purposes. We were managing a pandemic," he said in a statement. "But don't just listen to me. Take it from the Metropolitan Police. The police investigated my role at all of those events. In no case did they find that what I had done was unlawful."
Johnson was fined by the Metropolitan Police, London's police force, for attending his own birthday party in the Cabinet room in Downing Street in June 2020.
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Source(s): Reuters