Johnson poised for Partygate, challenges Sunak on Brexit

Field day for Boris Johnson in the Partygate saga, the scandal over the gatherings organized in Downing Street during the pandemic in violation of the anti-Covid restrictions imposed by himself when he was in government and which contributed to his resignation as prime minister last summer.

In fact, the former Tory leader is awaited today by a hearing, a sort of public questioning, before the bipartisan commission of Westminster, known as the Privileges Committee, which is conducting an inquiry to establish whether he lied deliberately at the time on those events in the House of Commons: accusation that, in the event of a negative verdict, it could cost him a suspension from the seat of deputy or even (in the extreme case) exclusion from Parliament, and in any case the end of any ambition for political revenge.

BoJo was preceded by a defensive brief made public yesterday essentially based on tones of challenge and which according to his detractors he ignores and does not reveal any form of remorse or even just embarrassment.

In the text, prepared with a team of lawyers, the former prime minister limits himself to admitting that the House was in fact "misled" by his initial statements on Partygate, but claims that these were made "in good faith", without the will to lie in a "deliberate" manner or with information knowingly deemed "reckless".

While he denies that there is any evidence of warnings directed at him by Downing Street staffers about the possible illegality of those events: barring the "unsubstantiated" allegations

Meanwhile, Johnson also maintains a bold attitude on other dossiers and towards his successor Rishi Sunak, announcing this morning his no to a technical vote scheduled for the day in the Commons on the Windsor Framework, the agreement to revise the controversial post-Brexit protocol for the Northern Ireland recently reached an agreement with the EU: with an act that threatens to widen the front in the Tory house beyond the borders of the European Research Group (Erg), a subgroup of ultra-Brexiteer conservative MPs who yesterday joined the rejection of the agreement already announced by the Northern Irish unionist party of the Dup.