Partygate is not about cake – it’s about the breaking of laws that were intended to save lives

Editorial: We do not need to wait any longer for confirmation that the laws framed in Downing Street were ignored by those who wrote them, argued for them – and subjected the rest of the population to painful restrictions

We can’t yet say who broke the law, but we know it happened on the prime minister’s watch (Reuters)

After months of obfuscation, delays, excuses, lies, more delays and the elevation of Sue Gray into the nearest thing to superstardom that the British civil service can offer, we now know one thing for sure: the law was broken during the Partygate affair.

The fixed penalty notices, around 20 of them, now being issued by the authorities, aren’t some sort of exercise in partisan spite – or part of a “Remoaner” conspiracy. They are not “fluff”. They are not about cake. They’ve been issued because the police and the criminal justice system judges that laws intended to protect public health and save lives were broken.

They were broken, blatantly, by certain named (though presently anonymous) individuals; and the crimes were committed in and around Downing Street and the Cabinet Office. The indications are that the prime minister is not one of those in this first tranche of fines, but he may figure in future.

No matter. The moment is decisive. We do not need to wait any longer for confirmation that the laws framed in Downing Street were ignored by those who wrote them, argued for them – and subjected the rest of the population to painful restrictions. The nation – up to and including the Queen – put up with the loneliness and desperation for the greater good. Those in charge partied while others made sacrifices.

The passage of time and current events have tended to fade memories of the revulsion when the double standards in Downing Street were revealed, but the nation is being reminded about the arrogance and hypocrisy now. No one likes being laughed at.

So yes, the law was broken in Downing Street during the Covid crisis. It follows that the frequent assurances offered by the prime minister to the House of Commons and elsewhere that the law was upheld, and that all the relevant rules and regulations were followed were incorrect.

We can’t yet say who broke the law, because the Metropolitan Police are unusually reticent about naming and shaming the elite party animals in the way they have not been with lesser mortals; but we know it happened on the prime minister’s watch, and very possibly with him watching – and indeed joining in.

This is about more than some legal point about what sort of “gatherings” were or weren’t lawful. It is about leadership, and respecting the public and their safety.

Why were the lockdown safeguards imposed on the country if the people who wrote the rules didn’t believe in them? Was it that Boris Johnson and those around him thought it was OK for them to take unnecessary risks? Why didn’t they take their own messages about slowing the spread of a deadly virus, protecting the NHS and saving lives seriously? Why did everyone else bother?

People who did make the sacrifices – the vast majority of the population – will feel betrayed and made to feel foolish. Why should they now (or ever) believe what Mr Johnson tells them about safeguards, if a new Covid wave requires new precautions to protect human health? This could become a pressing issue, relatively quickly.

There is a powerful wave of Covid infections and hospitalisations underway from the highly infectious Omicron sub-variant, that is putting unnecessary pressure on NHS wards and will lead to further postponement of non-Covid work. Who will obey Mr Johnson’s requests for common sense precautions now? Covid is not “over” – and we cannot take advice about it from someone who, deep down, doesn’t think it matters.

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Labour and the other opposition parties are still right to call for the prime minister to go, because what he did is obviously unforgivable. It is no good his increasingly desperate supporters pleading that he “got Brexit done” (he still hasn’t), or the big calls right (he didn’t) or that he did well on Ukraine (true), because Britain cannot have a prime minister who breaks the law and misleads parliament. It’s absurd – and demeans the country.

Soon, we will know if Mr Johnson himself has been found to have personally broken the law, the full Sue Gray report will be published – and others will offer their own excuses and disclose evidence and photographs. The full picture will come into focus. Mr Johnson will no longer be able to say he didn’t break the law, if he receives a fixed penalty notice that says he did.

Either way, he will have to persuade the public and MPs that he did not mislead parliament – a tough call. He will need to explain why these many “engagements” took place so freely in a pre-vaccine world.

This may not be the right week to oust Mr Johnson, because the public expects its leaders to concentrate on the tragedy in Ukraine. But that much-postponed moment of reckoning for Mr Johnson will arrive. He won’t have much to celebrate then.