Johnson calls decision over Covid parties 'political assassination'
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The cross-party Privileges Committee says Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process."
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Britain's former Prime Minister Boris Johnson angrily quit as a member of parliament on Friday 9 June 2023 (AFP)
A UK parliament committee ruled, on Thursday, that Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was Prime Minister.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he evaded formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, despite the fact that the body has a majority from his own party.
He was remorseless on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination."
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman," the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee.
The long-awaited 106-page report from the committee was reportedly harsher than anticipated, particularly in light of the sanction it would have recommended.
Normally, the committee's recommendations must be approved by MPs, and any ban lasting longer than 10 days may result in a "recall" by-election in the offender's district.
At the most recent general election, held in December 2019, in which his Conservative party won by a landslide, Johnson maintained his seat in the outer northwest London district of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
However, with just a 7,200-seat majority and the Tories behind Labour in the polls, it was far from guaranteed that he could have prevailed.
Johnson and several government officials were penalized by the police in the "Partygate" scandal for violating the social distancing rules that the government had imposed on the public to curtail the spread of Covid-19.
It triggered public outrage, most notably among the families of those who lost family members from the virus.
The issue was one of the factors that led to Johnson's resignation as prime minister in July and sparked a ministerial rebellion.
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