A commission will investigate whether Johnson lied to the British Parliament about the parties in Downing Street

MADRID, 21 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The House of Commons of the United Kingdom has approved this Thursday that a commission initiate an investigation to elucidate if the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, lied to Parliament about the parties in Downing Street during the pandemic.

The Labor Party, leader of the opposition, tabled the motion on Tuesday and has gone ahead without opposition from the Johnson Government caucuses.

Thus, the Privileges Commission will examine the allegations that Johnson lied to Parliament when he denied that the rules were violated in Downing Street with the meetings, after the ‘premier’ has been fined by the Metropolitan Police for attending one of these events .

Conservative MPs had been asked to back the British government’s attempt to delay the vote until investigations by police and Sue Gray, the official who has another independent investigation at hand, are completed. However, in a last minute change, it has been transferred to the Conservative MPs who could vote as they wished on the Labor motion.

As highlighted by the Sky News chain, there is some speculation in Westminster that the ‘Tory’ deputies are not prepared to wait any longer for an investigation into the conduct of the prime minister, currently on an official visit to India. The commission’s investigation, however, will not begin until Scotland Yard’s is over.

The Privileges Commission is made up of seven MPs reflecting the composition of the House of Commons. It is currently made up of four Conservatives, two Labor and one from the Scottish National Party (SNP).

It is run by a member of the opposition, which in this case is Chris Bryant. When the investigation is over, he must prepare a report and then forward it to the Commons. Its conclusions and recommendations would have to be voted on again in the chamber.

Johnson, his wife, Carrie, and Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, were fined last week. In total, the London Metropolitan Police issued thirty sanctions. After receiving the fine, the ‘premier’ assures that he paid it “immediately” and has reiterated his apologies for having violated the restrictions.

The Metropolitan Police has already fined the first 20 people for attending one of these events, for which it has already issued fifty sanctions. It opened its own investigation into twelve of these events on eight different dates, with the aim of verifying whether the regulations imposed by the Government to contain the spread of the coronavirus had indeed been violated.

The Police investigation was launched outside the independent report commissioned by the Government and which has already called into question some meetings held between May 2020 and April 2021. Johnson, who attended at least three of them, has apologized but it has always maintained that the rules were not breached.