Johnson’s partygate questioning risks being ‘Mccarthyite trial’
BORIS JOHNSON’S allies fear his questioning next week before a partygate committee will become a “Mccarthyite show trial” as seven MPS try to establish whether he misled Parliament.
The former prime minister will submit to a public evidence session before the Commons Privileges Committee on Wednesday that is expected to last up to four hours and will be televised live.
At Mr Johnson’s side will be one of Britain’s best known barristers, Lord Pannick KC, but the peer will not be allowed to give evidence for his client after a tussle over the rules was lost.
In the balance is whether Mr Johnson knowingly and deliberately misled MPS about lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he insisted no Covid rules were broken.
The Metropolitan Police eventually issued 126 fines for Covid law breaches to 83 people linked to eight different gatherings in Government buildings.
Mr Johnson has always argued he
believed no rules were broken when he told MPS as much and corrected the record when what had taken place later became apparent.
But MPS on the panel have argued that he should have known some events he attended broke lockdown guidance and are expected to press the point at the hearing. The Prime Minister’s allies say there is no “smoking gun” evidence to prove he knew rules had been broken before he issued denials to MPS. Some, however, fear that the seven MPS on the committee – four Tories, two from Labour and one from the SNP – could use the hearing to try to sway public opinion against him.
One told The Daily Telegraph: “He knows and the team around him knows that the members of the Privileges Committee are going to use this as a Mccarthyite show trial. They are going to make points, whether they fit with the evidence that has been presented, and notwithstanding his responses… they are going to try and humiliate him.”
Joseph Mccarthy was a US senator whose hunt for communists in post-war America has become infamous.
Supporters of the Privileges Committee process have long insisted the MPS will be impartial and noted that the 126 fines issued for Covid law-breaking show that rules were broken.
Mr Johnson has spent hours with his lawyers running through the questions he is likely to be asked and the possible answers he could give.