Johnson’s Leadership “At Minute to Midnight” over Partygate Scandals

The UK Prime Minister is facing the wrath of MPs and the general public as more controversial information about alleged Downing Street parties during the 2020 Covid lockdowns continues to emerge. 

In the most recent set of shocking revelations, Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie Symonds, are alleged to have been among 30 people who attended a “bring-your-own-booze” drinks gathering on May 20th, 2020, where as many as 100 people were invited. 

The latest party to emerge among a list of nine other ‘gatherings’ known to have taken place at a time when stringent Covid lockdown policies were imposed by the government, the Metropolitan Police has indicated that it is in contact with Number Ten over “widespread reporting relating to alleged breaches” of Covid rules. Writing on Twitter, the Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, described the Prime Minister’s “deflections and distractions” as “absurd” before urging the Prime Minister to “come clean” and “stop lying to the British public.” 

In December, Johnson’s government was thrown into hot water when it denied that a leaked image showing the Prime Minister, his wife, and 17 other staff members in the Downing Street garden with bottles of wine and a cheese board was anything other than a “work meeting.” First published by The Guardian, the image captured one of a number of confirmed gatherings during the first lockdown and showed Downing Street staff gathered in close proximity following a news conference held by then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock on 15th May, 2020. The government, at that time, had banned gatherings of more than two people in outdoor public spaces, and British citizens were prohibited from leaving their homes except for essential reasons.

The most recent revelation, which comes after ITV revealed a leaked email originally sent to 100 Downing Street staff by the Prime Minister’s principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, however, threatens to provide the killing blow to the Johnson administration. The email, titled with the subject line: “Socially Distanced Drinks! [OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE-No 10 ONLY],” reportedly even left Downing Street staffers stunned, with one claiming: “There were conversations about the email being really unwise. I remember people saying, ‘What the hell?’ 

Another Number Ten staffer, in a message sent to a colleague as a long table was being set up in the Downing Street garden, reportedly asked: “Is this for real?”

A number of senior Tory sources described the government’s actions as “beyond comprehension,” with one slamming the actions of Johnson and other party attendees as “an atrocity.” 

“We had the whole Owen Paterson affair and then we had the parties,” one Tory veteran and Johnson loyalist told the Telegraph. “It’s worse than before Christmas because Christmas was supposed to draw a line. Now we are having to deal with the sheer idiocy of an email to 100 people effectively saying: ‘Let’s break the rules’. It’s beyond comprehension, really. Even when a number of people rightly questioned the very idea of having a party, they didn’t listen. The level of distance between Downing Street and the public right now… the gulf, it’s so damaging. [Johnson] is in deep, deep trouble. I’m not sure it’s salvageable. It feels like we are now at a minute to midnight.”

While the government has confirmed that the event is under investigation by Sue Gray as part of her wider enquiry into Whitehall’s alleged breaking of lockdown restrictions, several Tory figures, including Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links, the former Scottish Conservative leader, said that Johnson must confirm himself whether he attended the “boozy shindigs” in question and not hide behind an official investigation. 

“The day that this was happening in Scotland a mile from my house, on Portobello beach, police were moving individuals on from sitting on the beach on the hottest day of the year. People were being told by police to get back in their houses. Less than an hour before this was supposed to kick off you had a cabinet minister on national television telling people they could only meet up with one person outside. I don’t know if he knew there was an email going around from a civil servant asking people to take a bottle into a back garden 100 yards away. It is utterly appalling. This is utterly indefensible.”

It is speculated that this most recent gathering to emerge as part of the controversies surrounding Partygate took place shortly after then-Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden reminded the public in a press conference broadcast from Downing Street that they may only “meet one person outside of your household in an outdoor, public place provided that you stay two metres apart.” The following day, disgraced MP and former-Health Secretary Matt Hancock responded to public concerns by saying that followers of Islam may not flout rules in “holding garden parties or gathering” to celebrate Eid, stating: 

“The clear answer for all faiths is people will have to adapt the celebrations around the current social distancing rules, and everybody knows what those rules are and they remain the same for every community.”

Defending Johnson in the Commons on Tuesday in the face of the recent revelations, however, Michael Ellis, the paymaster-general, insisted that his position was not under threat. 

“The Prime Minister is going nowhere. [He] retains the confidence of the people of this country and he did so two years ago with the biggest majority in decades.”