Report finds Johnson deliberately misled parliament

A report by MPs has found that former prime minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled   the House of Commons over lockdown parties held at No. 10.

The Privileges Committee has said it would have recommended suspending Johnson from the House of Commons for 90. However, Boris Johnson has already resigned as an MP.

The Committee concluded that Johnson deliberated misled the Committee and the House, impugned the Committee and was also complicit in abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee.

The Committee also recommended that Johnson should not be able to receive a former Member's pass for parliament. MPs will have to vote on the sanctions recommend in the report.

The report concluded that Johnson committed repeated contempts of Parliament and that his resignation statement also breached confidentiality requirements by criticising the committee's provisional findings.

Boris Johnson resigned as an MP last week, after seeing the report. He called the committee and "kangaroo court". Some of his supporters have also resigned.

Johnson said in a statement: "I didn’t think for one minute that a committee of MPs could find against me on the facts, and I didn’t see how any reasonable person could fail to understand what had happened."

He also said that the events in question were "reasonably necessary for work purposes".

He said: "Why would we have had an official photographer if we believed we were breaking the law?"

Image by EU2018BG Bulgarian Presidency - Informal Meeting of Foreign Affairs Council (Gymnich): Arrival, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67289728