‘Partygate’: The first fines in the Johnson administration

The case had been in hiding for a month due to the war in Ukraine, but is now back in the spotlight. The tone changes within the Conservatives.

The case of the 16 scandalous parties of the Johnson government in the middle of a coronavirus is characterized by the British media as “Partygate Saga”, meaning “the epic of parties”. And not unjustly… It took the publication of the first illegal party inside government buildings, to reveal a series of parties with the participation of even the British Prime Minister during the period 2020-2021, when the country was experiencing the toughest locks.

In the last month, the “Partygate” case, which had caused Boris Johnson several headaches as blames were raised, has been sidelined by the war in Ukraine. But today, Tuesday, the Metropolitan Police announced that they will hand over the first 20 fines to some of those who participated in the parties, bringing the case back to the forefront.

The names and the amount of the fines are still unknown

However, this development does not seem to clear up the landscape. if they decide to make it public. A second “obstacle” is the delay of the police in completing their investigation into 12 of the 16 parties of the government it is considering. It is blocking the publication of at least 300 photographs and 500 pages collected from Sue Gray’s earlier investigation into the parties, which he described as a “leadership failure and crisis” by the prime minister’s office.

It is recalled that the police since January, when they started the investigation, have distributed more than 100 questionnaires to interrogate the participants in the parties. Among them is Boris Johnson, whose although the answers to the questionnaire will not be made public, he has promised to inform the public, in case there is a fine against him. It remains to be seen whether all the fines will be repaid – the amount of which remains a huge question mark – as otherwise, the police leave open the possibility of even taking the issue of repayment to court.

Tone change within Conservatives

Although “Partygate” was the one that seriously threatened Boris Johnson’s leadership in the Conservative Party, it seems that the climate has changed on the issue due to the war in Ukraine: At least two Conservative MPs have withdrawn their motion of censure. had filed. One of them, Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said it was a “completely wrong time” to change leadership at a time when Putin was invading Ukraine.

The Labor Party, however, insists that if the British prime minister is fined by the Metropolitan Police he must resign as “the situation in Ukraine does not negate the fact that the prime minister lied to the British people”.

Zoe Katzagiannaki, London

Source: Deutsche Welle