BORIS Johnson deliberately lied to MPs about lockdown-breaking parties during the Covid pandemic that would have seen him face a 90-day suspension had he not quit as a lawmaker, a parliament committee ruled Thursday.
The Privileges Committee, which probes breaches of House of Commons rules, concluded that Johnson was guilty of “repeated contempts (of parliament) and… seeking to undermine the parliamentary process”.
“The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the prime minister, the most senior member of the government,” they stated in a damning 106-page report.
“There is no precedent for a prime minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House.
“He misled the House on an issue of the greatest importance to the House and to the public, and did so repeatedly.”
The seven-member committee, which has a majority of MPs from Johnson’s own Conservative party, has powers to recommend sanctions on rule-breakers that have to be voted on by MPs.
But Johnson, 58, avoided having to face his peers — and the humiliation of potentially having to run for re-election in his constituency — by resigning as an MP just days before the report was released.
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