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The UK parliament agreed to sustain a ruling that Boris Johnson willfully deceived MPs when he claimed that Covid lockdown restrictions were observed at all times in Downing Street when he was prime minister.

In the report published last week, Johnson was found to have "committed a serious contempt” of parliament when he stated Covid restrictions were followed after Covid lockdown parties were revealed in Downing Street in a serious partygate scandal.

The committee not only reported that Johnson had willfully deceived parliament, but they also stated that when providing testimony to their inquiry, he proceeded to mislead the committee itself while giving evidence in his testimony. 

Read more: Amid rising tension, Johnson accuses Sunak of 'talking rubbish'

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."

However, he evaded formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week. The 354 to 7 vote in the House of Commons was expected to pass due to many conservatives abstaining.

Johnson apparently asked his most outspoken followers, who backed him throughout and fiercely criticized the committee, not to vote so as not to add legitimacy to the result.

The former PM would have had a lengthy suspension from parliament and would have been refused entrance to the premises, a privilege granted to former members of parliament. However, Johnson has already resigned as an MP and will not serve the sentence or face the by-election that would have resulted from the ban.

Read next: Boris Jonson abruptly quits as MP, decries 'witch-hunt'

Sunak and other conservatives are hoping to move forward from Johnson's scandals, but that does not seem likely, as a YouGov poll revealed yesterday that Johnson has more popularity points than Rishi Sunak among 2019 Tory voters. The former PM has a net approval rating of 14 compared to Sunak who has 7.