London police investigating Downing Street lockdown parties
U.K. prime minister facing calls to resign over gatherings
The “partygate” scandal that threatens to derail U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration deepened Tuesday as police opened an investigation into gatherings at government offices that allegedly violated COVID-19 lockdown rules.
London’s Metropolitan Police Service has launched an inquiry into “a number of events” at Johnson’s Downing Street office and other government buildings because they met the force’s criteria for investigating the “most serious and flagrant” breaches of coronavirus rules, Commissioner Cressida Dick told a committee of the London Assembly, the capital’s local government council.
Johnson is facing calls to resign amid revelations that he or his staff attended a series of social events during periods of lockdown when most social gatherings were banned in England, forcing average citizens to miss weddings, funerals and birthdays as friends and relatives died alone in hospitals. The gatherings are already being investigated by a senior civil servant whose report has been anxiously awaited by lawmakers and the public.
Police have already assessed several other events and determined that they do not meet the threshold for further investigation, the commissioner said. She declined to provide specifics about the gatherings.
The announcement throws into doubt the timetable for when Sue Gray, the civil servant leading the Cabinet Office inquiry, will release her report. Gray had been expected to finish this week, but rules governing the investigation allow the inquiry to be paused if she turns over evidence of potential criminal offenses to the police.
The prime minister’s spokesperson, Max Blain, said the investigations team and the police were talking.
“That still needs to be worked through, both in relation to what may or may not be published and the ongoing work of both the police and the (Gray) investigation,” he said.
Even before the police investigation was announced, Johnson was fighting off new allegations of rule breaking aimed directly at him.
ITV News reported late Monday that Johnson’s then-fiancee threw a birthday party for him — complete with cake — inside his Downing Street offices on June 19, 2020, followed by another gathering for family and friends in his official residence.
The prime minister’s office confirmed that the events took place, but denied that they violated lockdown regulations. The first was a brief gathering with colleagues who Johnson was already in close contact with and the second involved a small number of family members who met outside in a garden, in line with coronavirus rules.