Johnson to plead innocence through ignorance before privileges committee

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson will this afternoon appear in front of parliament’s privileges committee. The committee, chaired by Harriet Harman, will quiz Johnson on his statements to the House of Commons regarding whether or not lockdown rules were broken inside No 10. The veracity of the statements is not in question – it has long been established that when Johnson said all guidance had been followed, this was not the case – but rather the intention of the statements: did Johnson believe himself to be speaking truthfully?

Ahead of the session, Johnson has submitted written evidence in which he firmly asserts that while his statements “of course… did not turn out to be correct”, they were made “in good faith and on the basis of what I honestly knew and believed at the time”. If the committee makes the finding that Johnson was not acting in good faith and intentionally misled MPs over ‘partygate’, he could be suspended from parliament. If this suspension is for longer than ten days, a recall petition would be triggered in Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, opening up the possibility of a by-election (although, according to the Financial Times, this is unlikely). Labour has already selected Camden councillor Danny Beales to contest the west London seat, where the Conservatives’ majority of 7,210 is seen by many as having the potential to be overturned.

The television personality Lorraine Kelly has argued, for tax reasons, that when appearing on the nation’s screens she plays a character called ‘Lorraine Kelly’. The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has put forward the same legal defence. Johnson’s larger-than-life persona and affect – playing the character of ‘Boris Johnson’, if you will – has led him to the top of British political life. Whatever the outcome of today – by-election, censure, stunning reprieve – we’re likely to witness ‘Boris Johnson’ at full hair-tousling strength before Harman’s committee this afternoon.

Labour has been keeping fairly tight lipped about the big story of the week, with Keir Starmer answering questions on the hearing put to him at a press conference yesterday by saying he would wait to see what today’s session brought before making any comment. He did, however, give his backing to comments made by Thangam Debbonaire, who slammed Johnson for attempting to “discredit” the privileges committee in advance of the session. The shadow leader of the house said: “It’s vital that this well-respected committee, a majority of whom are Tory MPs, can carry out their evidence session without intimidation.”

However explosive the content ultimately proves to be, fallout from the session will likely dominate tomorrow’s news as well. The Labour leader is set to give a speech on the second of his five ‘missions‘, which focuses on tackling crime, tomorrow morning, a set of announcements likely to be eclipsed by whatever comes out of the privileges committee this afternoon.

On LabourList today, we have a piece from polling expert David Cowling. The former BBC editor of political research says Labour’s poll lead is impressive, but that he won’t be visiting the bookies just yet: “My own judgement is that Labour has not yet sealed the deal with the electorate that it needs to in order to climb the mountain that the 2019 election created.”