PM insists he DID NOT break ministerial rules over his Partygate fine

Boris insists he DID NOT break ministerial rules over his Partygate fine after his furious ethics adviser claims it’s a ‘legitimate question’ and demands the PM sets out his case in public

  • Boris Johnson insists he did not break ministerial rules over his Partygate fine 
  • PM is forced to respond after a furious intervention by his own ethics adviser 
  • Lord Geidt stressed there was a ‘legitimate question’ over the ministerial code
  • He blasts Mr Johnson for failing to mention the code in any public statements 

Boris Johnson tonight insisted he did not break ministerial rules over his Partygate fine after the Prime Minister was put under pressure by his own ethics adviser to set out his case.

In a stunning intervention, Lord Geidt – the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests – stressed there was a ‘legitimate question’ as to whether the PM breached the ministerial code after he was handed a Fixed Penalty Notice.

Traditionally, any breach of the ministerial code came has come with an expectation that the minister would be dismissed from Government.

But, in a new version of the code published last week, the PM spelled out how rule-breaking ministers could be docked salary or ordered to say sorry rather than be sacked.

Critics have accused Mr Johnson of having ‘changed the rules’ in order to save himself over Partygate.

Lord Geidt blasted Mr Johnson for having failed to have address allegations he breached the code in any of his recent public statements on Partygate.

It follows last week’s publication of Sue Gray’s report into Covid rule-breaking in Downing Street.

In his annual report, Lord Geidt revealed how Number 10 had not ‘heeded’ his demands for the PM to ‘take responsibility for his own conduct under his own ministerial code’.

Lord Geidt even suggested he could have been forced to resign over the row. 

However, in a letter to the peer, Mr Johnson blamed a ‘failure of communication’ between Downing Street and Lord Geidt’s office.

The PM stressed his belief that, ‘taking account of all the circumstances’, he did not breach the ministerial code by being fined £50 for his lockdown-breaking birthday bash in No10 in June 2020

Lord Geidt blasted Boris Johnson for having failed to have address allegations he breached the code in any of his recent public statements on Partygate

In a letter to the peer, Mr Johnson blamed a ‘failure of communication’ between Downing Street and Lord Geidt’s office

The PM insisted to his ethics adviser he was ‘not aware of the weight you put on the absence of an explicit reference to the ministerial code’

The PM insisted to his ethics adviser he was ‘not aware of the weight you put on the absence of an explicit reference to the ministerial code’.

Mr Johnson also stressed his belief that, ‘taking account of all the circumstances’, he did not breach the code by being fined £50 for his lockdown-breaking birthday bash in No10 in June 2020.

He suggested there had been ‘past precedents of ministers who have unwittingly breached regulations where there was no intent to break the law’.

The PM also insisted he had been ‘fully accountable’ to both Parliament and the British public over Partygate and had offered an apology for the ‘mistake’.

He further explained he had corrected his past statements to MPs – in which Mr Johnson claimed Covid rules had been followed at all times in Downing Street – and had ‘followed the principles of leadership and accountability in doing so’.

Mr Johnson added that Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who was also fined over the birthday bash, had also not broken the ministerial code.

The PM’s letter to Lord Geidt was prompted by the peer’s scathing preface to his annual report.

Lord Geidt wrote that the last year had been ‘far from normal’ as he described how, for much of the past 12 months, the PM’s own conduct had been ‘subject to consideration against the requirements of the code’.

Lord Geidt said it would be ‘especially difficult’ to inspire ‘trust’ in the set of ministerial rules if any PM – who is the ultimate arbiter of the code – ‘declines to refer to it’.

‘In the case of the Fixed Penalty Notice recently issued to and paid by the Prime Minister, a legitimate question has arisen as to whether those facts alone might have constituted a breach of the overarching duty within the ministerial code of complying with the law,’ he added.

‘It may be that the Prime Minister considers that no such breach of his ministerial code has occurred. In that case, I believe a Prime Minister should respond accordingly, setting out his case in public.’

Lord Geidt suggested he would have been forced to resign his role – and to become the second independent adviser to quit under Mr Johnson’s premiership – if he had been forced to ask the PM to instigate an investigation into himself for an alleged breach of the code over the Partygate fine.

He said: ‘Such a circular process could only risk placing the ministerial code in a place of ridicule.’

The peer revealed how he had instead – following the conclusion of the Metropolitan Police probe into Partygate and the publication of Ms Gray’s report – ‘repeatedly counselled the Prime Minister’s official and political advisers that the Prime Minister should be ready to offer public comment on his obligations under the ministerial code, even if he has judged himself not to be in breach’.

Lord Geidt continued: ‘That advice has not been heeded and, in relation to the allegations about unlawful gatherings in Downing Street, the Prime Minister has made not a single public reference to the ministerial code.’

In his letter to Lord Geidt, the PM revealed the pair had spoken earlier today at which the peer ‘confirmed that you had not raised with me directly your advice to make a public comment, nor were you asking me to adjudicate on the ministerial code’.

Mr Johnson added: ‘Notwithstanding, I understand your frustration that there may have been a failure of communication between our offices, such that I was not aware of the weight you put on the absence of an explicit reference to the ministerial code’.

Lord Geidt penned a scathing preface to his annual report in which he suggested he could have been forced to resign

Labour tonight claimed Lord Geidt’s anger at No10 was the ‘latest sign of the rampant sleaze engulfing Downing Street’. 

The party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: ‘The Prime Minister’s second ethics adviser has now threatened to quit, in the latest sign of the rampant sleaze engulfing Downing Street.

‘This is a Prime Minister who changed the rules while being investigated for breaking those same rules.

‘He has made himself judge and jury in his own trial, giving himself a free pass to ride rough shod over British values of decency.

‘However much he tries to rig the rules and evade scrutiny, the Prime Minister has been found out and his days are numbered.’

Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain said: ‘This scathing criticism shows even Boris Johnson’s own ethics adviser no longer trusts him to tell the truth. He is not fit to hold public office.

‘It’s no wonder the Prime Minister has been trying to water down the ministerial code and rewrite the rules. The only person he cares about is himself.

‘The net really is closing in around Johnson. He’s missed the boat to do the decent thing and resign, now Conservative MPs must give him the sack.’

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