Johnson has offered his “mealy-mouthed apology”. But what happens now?

Boris Johnson is not sorry. Appearing before MPs for the first time since being fined for breaking his own Covid rules yesterday, the Prime Minister apologised for his behaviour but added that “it did not occur to me then or subsequently that a gathering in the cabinet room just before a vital meeting on the Covid strategy could amount to a breach of the rules”. Once again, he gave an apology heavily caveated with a defence of ignorance of the rules he spent plenty of time explaining to us on the telly. Keir Starmer gave a strong performance at the despatch box. Picking up on the nuance in Johnson’s statement, he told parliament: “What a joke. Even now, as the latest mealy-mouthed apology stumbles out of one side of his mouth, a new set of deflections and distortions pour from the other.”

MPs will vote on whether to launch an investigation into whether Johnson misled parliament with his earlier responses to the ‘partygate’ allegations (including that “the guidance was followed”) on Thursday, Lindsay Hoyle revealed yesterday. Importantly, the motion Labour will table is not expected to simply state that he lied and was in contempt of parliament. This makes it more likely to be supported by Conservative MPs – or at the very least mean that they are less likely to vote against it. A key focus of Starmer’s speech yesterday was calling on Tory MPs to “put their conscience first” and remove the Prime Minister from office. And Conservative backbenchers reportedly asked Johnson in a private meeting last night to refer himself to the standards committee to save them from having to vote on the motion.

Parliamentary mathematics means that Labour has little chance of passing the motion, however. The government will treat the vote as a no-confidence motion and Conservative MPs will be whipped to reject the investigation. If it is passed (again, a big if), the motion would refer the matter to the cross-party privileges committee, which has a Tory majority but is chaired by Labour MP Chris Bryant. The committee would examine the allegations against Johnson and then report back at a later date. If successful on Thursday, Labour therefore ensures more excruciating afternoons in the Commons for Johnson down the line. If not, as is likely, MPs will spend tomorrow raking over all the instances in which the Prime Minister may or may not have misled parliament. Either way, the story continues to rumble on just a couple of weeks before voters head to the polls in the local elections.

Voting in Momentum’s policy primary opens today. Its members have until April 27th to back which policies they think the group should push at Labour’s annual conference later this year. Writing this morning for LabourList, John McDonnell MP made an impassioned plea for members to “finish what we started in Brighton last year” and support a motion calling on the party to back proportional representation for general elections. The motion was rejected at last year’s conference as trade unions voted against, despite 79.51% of Constituency Labour Party delegates supporting the policy. McDonnell put this down to unions not having had the chance to hear motions on electoral reform ahead of conference, largely due to disruption caused by the pandemic, but pointed out that support has since been expressed in the trade union movement – including by Unite. Read his piece here. Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.