Partygate revelations don’t just affect Boris Johnson – but Rishi Sunak too

Editorial: The inquiry will make its recommendations to the whole Commons and the prime minister really cannot win

It would seem Johnson has a lot to answer for (Reuters)

When Harriet Harman, Bernard Jenkin, Charles Walker, Allan Dorans, Alberto Costa, Yvonne Forfague and Andy Carter were given a guided tour of Downing Street a fortnight ago, they were more than mere curious tourists. The seven MPs who serve on the House of Commons committee of privileges were inspecting the premises rather like a jury might take a look around a crime scene. Which, given the rampant Covid rule-breaking during Partygate, is more or less what it was.

Sure enough, they discovered, Sherlock Holmes-style, “that a line of sight exists from the bottom of the stairs leading up to what was then Mr Johnson’s flat into the press office vestibule where these gatherings took place, and that for Mr Johnson to have been present in the vestibule during the gatherings he would have had to proceed from the staircase through a further intervening anteroom”. Elementary, you may say.

It is but one of many extremely damaging interim conclusions that the MPs have reached. Duly warned about the seriousness and detail of the evidence against him, it is now for Mr Johnson to offer his side of the story during a televised hearing before the committee in the week beginning 20 March. It is a virtual impeachment, and quite unprecedented. The event should provide a healthy boost to sales of popcorn.

The committee’s interim report is a commendably precise and measured document, reaching provisional conclusions that are well supported by the documentary, photographic and eye-witness accounts presented to them.

It would seem Mr Johnson has a lot to answer for. He knew the rules as well as anyone, even given his slapdash ways, and the “evidence strongly suggests that breaches of guidance would have been obvious to Boris Johnson at the time he was at the gatherings”. Also, Mr Johnson at no point attempted to offer a correction or clarification to the controversial answers he gave to questions in the House of Commons.

Thus far, Mr Johnson’s defence is flimsy. His immediate response is to throw doubt on the Sue Gray report into Partygate. Mr Johnson says it is “surreal” that the committee would rely on such a document when Ms Gray has just announced that she is going to work for the Labour Party. Indeed, the “optics” are unfortunate, but the committee claims that the report was not in fact used in evidence in any case.

The committee should be absolved of any charge that that they constitute a “kangaroo court” pursuing a “witch hunt”. At best, this is paranoia; at worst, Johnsonite propaganda. There is a majority of Conservatives on the committee, albeit with a Labour chair in Harman.

The usual chair, the opinionated Chris Bryant, recused himself because he was seen as too biased. The committee is advised by a senior judge, and staffed by impartial and professional clerks of the Commons. Their work, carefully laid out in reports and clearly linked to evidence hasn’t been faulted. And none of them are about to take a job with Keir Starmer.

The integrity of the committee ought not be idly impugned by those who should know better. Mr Johnson is perfectly well able to take care of himself under questioning, and has enjoyed the benefit of legal advice costing some £222,000. Lawyers may be costly, but he can hardly claim he’s being treated unfairly.

And if the privileges committee really is a ramshackle conspiracy, then it is no more or less one than it was or is for, say, John Nicholson or Owen Paterson, or any other member of parliament. It would be ironic if Mr Johnson wanted “one rule for himself, another rule for everyone else” when it came to the committee’s work. Constant derision by sections of the media of the committee’s work as a kangaroo court is corrosive to the democratic process.

Soon, the committee will make its recommendations to the whole House, and Rishi Sunak will have to take a view on the matter. The prime minister really cannot win. If he attempts to defend Mr Johnson and get his whips to somehow get his predecessor off the hook, he too would look culpable and contemptuous of parliament. Yet if he allows matters to take their course, and the sanction is severe enough, Mr Johnson may have to fight a by-election to stay in parliament.

Either way, Mr Sunak is going to undergo excruciating embarrassment over his former colleague and neighbour, and the image of the Conservative Party will be damaged still further by public reminders of a deeply shameful episode.

About the best Mr Sunak can hope for is that the whole imbroglio is brought to a conclusion as rapidly as possible, and Mr Johnson begins to fade into history: “Fat chance,” as Mr Johnson would say.