'He told the house, no rules were broken in Downing Street during lockdown. The police have now concluded there was widespread criminality. The ministerial code says that ministers who knowingly mislead the house should resign.'
During yet another heated Prime Minister’s Questions, where Labour leader Keir Starmer and Prime Minister Boris Johnson clashed over taxes and the cost of living crisis, focus was also on Johnson for misleading the House over the partygate scandal and why he hadn’t resigned.
Starmer told the Commons: “He told the house, no rules were broken in Downing Street during lockdown. The police have now concluded there was widespread criminality. The ministerial code says that ministers who knowingly mislead the house should resign.
“Why is he still here?”.
Starmer’s comments come after the Met Police said yesterday that it was set to issue an initial 20 fines to people who broke lockdown rules by attending illegal parties in Downing Street and Whitehall.
After weeks of the government insisting that no lockdown rules were broken, the Met confirmed that it is referring 20 FPNs to the ACRO Criminal Records Office – which is responsible for issuing fines.
Starmer went on to add: “There are only two possible explanations. Either he’s trashing the ministerial code or he’s claiming he was repeatedly lied to by his own advisers and that he didn’t know what was going on in his own house and his own office. Come off it.
“He really does think it’s one rule for him, and another rule for everyone else. That he can pass off criminality in his office and ask others to follow the law. That he can keep raising taxes and call himself a tax cutter, that he can hike tax during a cost of living crisis and get credit for giving a bit back just before an election. When is he going to stop taking the British public for fools?”
Starmer also took the opportunity to demand the Tories bring in a windfall tax on soaring oil and gas profits, rather than putting up taxes on working people.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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