Partygate ‘kangaroo court’ will not stop bid for No 10, say ex-PM’s allies

BORIS JOHNSON’S backers insist that an inquiry into whether he misled Parliament over partygate will not prevent him from staging a comeback because it is a “kangaroo court”.

Some activists supporting Mr Johnson have been promoting an argument that he did not break the law in the first place, while close allies have dismissed partygate as “old news” and downplayed the potential political repercussions of the probe.

In November, the Privileges Committee is due to begin hearing oral evidence from witnesses to decide whether Mr Johnson misled Parliament when he told MPs that “all guidance was followed in Number 10” and that there was “no party” during lockdown.

It could ultimately recommend that he is suspended from the House of Commons, which in turn could trigger a recall petition and by-election in his constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

On Saturday, Dominic Raab, the former deputy prime minister –who is backing Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership race – said that he did not think Mr Johnson would be able to focus on being prime minister during the inquiry.

Before leaving office, Mr Johnson commissioned an independent legal opinion by Lord Pannick KC, who said that the committee inquiry’s approach was “fundamentally flawed” and “wrong in principle”.

Now, supporters of the former prime minister have stepped up their attacks on the inquiry.

Paul Diamond, a barrister who supported a campaign by Lord Cruddas to get Mr Johnson on to the last Conservative leadership ballot, decried it as a “kangaroo court”. Comparing it to the January 6 Committee in the US which is investigating the Capitol riots, Mr Diamond said the Privileges Committee’s actions were like “summoning President Trump to appear for the obvious outcome that everybody knows is going to happen… it’s politically motivated”.

He said that the committee had lowered the bar so that it did not require proof of intent to mislead Parliament. “There’s no natural justice,” he said.

The ConservativePost grassroots website has directed activists to an article by another barrister, Steven Barrett, arguing that Mr Johnson may not even have broken the law with his lockdownbreaking birthday party, because Covid rules did not apply to Crown Land.

Claire Bullivant, founder and editor of ConservativePost, told Telegraph: “Boris technically could have been having raves every night, and he wouldn’t have broken the law. It’s impossible to have intentionally lied to Parliament when even the lawyers are fighting about whether a crime took place.”

Ms Bullivant said she also believed that Mr Johnson could have challenged his fixed penalty notice.

“We feel as a group that Boris just had horrible advice at the time,” she said.

“I think at the time he was being a nice guy, thinking, ‘I can’t have been seen to be doing things the people can’t do.’

“I think he just accepted the fine whereas I’m not sure other politicians would have done that.”

‘Boris technically could have been having raves every night and he wouldn’t have broken the law’