Boris Johnson, Partygate | Boris Johnson remains seated

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the government apparatus in the United Kingdom must answer for several alleged gatherings while the country was shut down. There have been allegations of twelve incidents in 2020 and one in 2021.

* May 15, 2020: Garden party in Downing Street. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie, former chief adviser Dominic Cummings and Johnson’s private secretary Martin Reynolds are pictured in a photograph leaked to The Guardian. They are sitting at a table in the garden with wine and cheese in front of them. 15 other people were also pictured. Johnson has called it a working meeting.

* 20 May 2020: Hagefest. A leaked email from Reynolds to 100 Downing Street employees invited to an evening gathering, where guests were to bring their own wine / drink.

* November 13, 2020: Farewell party. Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a speech at an event for outgoing communications director Lee Cain.

* 13 November 2020: Party in the private home. It is claimed that Johnson’s then-fiancé invited to parties at the private residence in Downing Street. A spokesman has called the allegation “just nonsense”.

* November 25, 2020: Drinks with employees in the Ministry of Finance, started spontaneously after a working meeting.

* November 27, 2020: Farewell to another senior employee in Downing Street. Johnson is said to have spoken.

* December 10, 2020: Party under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. Former Minister of Education Gavin Williamson is said to have attended.

* December 14, 2020: Party with mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and staff at the Tory party’s campaign headquarters. Bailey has since apologized and acknowledged poor judgment.

* December 15, 2020: Quiz in Downing Street. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pictured with colleagues, where one was wearing Christmas tinsel and another was wearing a Santa hat. Downing Street admitted that Johnson “briefly” participated in the quiz, but says it was a virtual event.

* 16 December 2020: Employees in the civil service at the Ministry of Transport drank alcohol and danced after working hours in the office. A spokesman later said it was a misjudgment, and apologized.

* December 17, 2020: Christmas party at the government office. Invitations are said to have been sent out by the secretary to Simon Case, one of the members of the government. In the digital calendars, the event was marked as “Christmas party”.

* December 18, 2020: Christmas party in Downing Street. The incident that triggered the investigations into parties during the shutdown was allegations that a party was arranged for the employees of Downing Street. Boris Johnson should not have participated. His spokeswoman Allegra Stratton quit her job after a video clip of her joking about the incident at a quasi-press conference was leaked to the press.

* April 16, 2021: Farewell parties for two Downing Street employees. Two different with a total of 30 participants who later joined forces for one and the same party. Alcohol was allegedly drunk and guests danced to music, according to witnesses. Boris Johnson was not present. The festivities took place the night before Queen Elizabeth had to sit alone at her husband’s Prince Philips’ funeral.

(NTB)

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Does not preclude rule change

As long as Johnson secured a simple majority in the vote on Monday, that is, half of the 359 votes plus one, he would remain in office and cannot be challenged again until a year has passed.

However, the party does not rule out a rule change which will mean that distrust can be raised again.

The no-confidence motion did not achieve the required majority, and Johnson thus continues to govern both as party leader and prime minister.

At 21.00 Norwegian time, the voting stopped. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom thus had to face a nerve-wracking hour. Seconds before 22.00 the result came.

The no-confidence motion against Boris Johnson was put forward almost two years after he secured a solid election victory for the Tories, but the time since has been marked by scandals and a harrowing strife in the party.

Also read: Partygate: New drinking pictures of Boris Johnson leaking out

The scandals piled up

Boris Johnson marked himself as a clear EU opponent and ardent supporter of Brexit. In mid-2019, he and other Tory politicians made sure that Theresa May’s days as prime minister were over.

In December of the same year, the man, whom many Britons saw as a troublemaker, won the favor of voters with his promise to make Brexit a reality.

The scandals did not wait. Johnson quickly had to defend his spending after renovating the prime minister’s apartment in Downing Street, as well as after an expensive taxpayer’s vacation to a privately owned Caribbean island. However, none of the parts seemed to weaken his popularity.

Murring

When Johnson in 2021 tried to change the rules of Parliament to save his good friend and ally Owen Paterson from disciplinary action after a breach of the British National Assembly’s rules against lobbying, several party members began to murmur.

When Paterson finally had to resign as elected, the Tories also put the proposal for rule changes in the drawer. When Paterson’s seat in Parliament was to be refilled, they lost.

At the same time, Johnson had to endure harsh criticism for not taking the corona pandemic seriously, and ended up in hospital himself after being infected. The criticism gradually diminished as the vaccination gained momentum, but the pandemic has still claimed close to 180,000 British lives. The mortality rate has thus been as much as 4.5 times higher in the United Kingdom than in Norway, measured in relation to the population.

Fester

It was only when the British media began to write about what was quickly dubbed the partygate scandal, Johnson’s breach of the infection control rules his own government had introduced during the coronation pandemic, that the really big problems arose for the British Prime Minister.

Although Johnson has only been fined for attending one gathering when it was banned, it quickly came to light that there had been many gatherings and parties in Downing Street during the shutdown.

Pictures and testimonies from partygoers were difficult to explain away and difficult for many conservative Tories to swallow, and dissatisfaction with the party leader simmered.

Buing

The fact that the party hijacked a seat from Labor in the by-elections in Hartlepool at the beginning of last year helped to dampen criticism for a while, but when the Tories lost by-elections in Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in June, dissatisfaction with Johnson rose to new heights.

During the local elections in May this year, hundreds of Tories lost their seats, and more and more leading Tories openly expressed dissatisfaction and distrust with Johnson.

Also read: Johnson: – I learned my lesson

Opinion polls have not gone in either Johnson’s or the Conservative Party’s favor as the partygate scandal has been rolled out, and nearly 60 percent of those polled said Monday that the Tories should find a new leader for the party and the country.

Voltage

When he appeared outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on Friday to attend a mass in connection with Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years on the throne, he was greeted with a bow from the crowd.

On Monday, it became clear that 55 of Johnson’s party colleagues had supported a no-confidence motion from Steve Brine, who believes that he is neither suitable to lead the party nor the country. This corresponds to 15 percent of the party’s parliamentary group, which is the limit for promoting motions of no confidence.

If Johnson loses, the Tories must find a new leader. Johnson is not allowed to run as a candidate, but he can remain as prime minister until the new leader is in place.

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