London’s Metropolitan Police announced on 19 May the end of their investigation into rule breaking at covid 19 lockdown parties in Downing Street.
Number 10 Downing Street said: “The Met has confirmed they are taking no further action as regards the prime minister” although Boris Johnson was widely expected to receive more than the single fine he got in April.
He still faced the imminent release of a full internal report by senior civil servant Sue Gray. Her heavily edited interim report in January found “serious failures of leadership and judgment” at Number 10.
And he will also face an inquiry by the Parliamentary committee on privileges into whether he “misled the house” when he had earlier claimed there were no parties, he didn’t know about any parties, and then that all rules were followed.
The police examined 510 photos and 345 documents and issued a total of 126 fines to a total of 83 people for breaking covid laws which prevented millions of Britons from seeing their families and friends or visiting dying relatives during covid lockdowns.
Opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer repeated his demand for Johnson to go.
“After an investigation that shows 120 plus breaches of the law in Downing Street, of course he should resign,” he said.
Starmer himself faced a possible police fine over claims of a lockdown breach during Labour party byelection campaigning in Durham in April 2021.
He has said he would resign if he is fined.
Johnson rejected calls to resign from all four Opposition parties and internal questions about his leadership through six months of revelations about lockdown-breaking parties in 2020 and 2021 and has issued multiple apologies for the rule-breaking behaviour.
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The Sue Gray report
Boris Johnson fined
Partygate – covid, the media, the prime minister
