Boris tells MPs: No10 flat event was related to work

PM denies rules broken but pressure grows as plotters prepare to move against him next month

BORIS JOHNSON has insisted to ministers and hundreds of Conservative MPs that a gathering in his Downing Street flat investigated for Covid law breaches was a “work” event. The Prime Minister, who has until now avoided commenting on individual events being examined by police, was challenged at a meeting of the Conservative parliamentary party about a private assurance he gave to a backbencher earlier this year.

In response, Mr Johnson said he stood by his claim at the time that a gathering at which Abba music was allegedly heard playing in the flat was a work meeting and therefore permitted under Covid rules in place at the time.

A Conservative MP said the PM would now face grave difficulties if the Metropolitan Police decided that the gathering did breach Covid rules.

“I think that would be a moment of extreme danger for the Prime Minister, because he would have not only have misled the House but also the 1922,” the MP said.

The disclosure comes as a growing number of Tory MPs were privately indicating that they were inclined to move against the PM after next week’s local elections, amid anger over Mr Johnson’s handling of the affair. “The mood is shifting,” said one MP. Another senior MP said: “I actually heard a Cabinet minister saying ‘maybe a period in opposition is what we need’.”

According to the MP, the minister said: “Things are shambolic. Who is there to take over? A period of opposition would allow people to come through.”

Mr Johnson has received a £50 fixed penalty notice after attending a small gathering in the Cabinet room to mark his 56th birthday in June 2020.

But police are looking into five further events that he allegedly attended.

One of those was a gathering in his flat on Nov 13, 2020 – the day Dominic Cummings, his former senior adviser, was forced out of Downing Street.

Mr Johnson has denied there was a party, but declined to say publicly whether he was in the flat that night. Carrie Johnson, the PM’s wife, was reportedly there. At the Conservative parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday night, Aaron Bell, the MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, congratulated Mr Johnson on his efforts over Ukraine, but added: “But partygate really matters, so I must ask you if you stand by what you said in January that what happened in the flat was work.”

Mr Johnson replied that he did. Allies of the Prime Minister are understood to have told MPs before the start of the investigation that he had taken his closest aides up to the flat to decide how to proceed after the departure of Mr Cummings and Lee Cain, his then director of communications.

Mr Cummings has claimed there were photographs of the flat gathering. He called it a “party”.

Following the publication of Sue Gray’s interim report, Mr Bell confirmed that he had submitted a letter of no confidence in Mr Johnson.

Last night Mr Johnson said: “This Government is getting on with the job of delivering for the British people.”