Boris Johnson has claimed that the privileges committee’s report identifying ways he may have misled parliament in fact “totally vindicates” him.
He said that “after a lot of labour” the committee had uncovered “no evidence whatever that when I stood up in parliament I said anything which I did not believe — and therefore there is no contempt”.
The former prime minister continued: “The reason there’s that gap, the reason there’s no evidence to show that I must have known or I must have believed that illegal events were taking place is because I didn’t.
“I thought we were fighting Covid to the best of our ability in very difficult circumstances . . . and I believed that what we were doing was in conformity with the Covid regulations. So that is why I said what I said in parliament, and that is why I’m certain there will be no contempt.”
Johnson also reiterated his criticism of Sue Gray, the senior civil servant who investigated the Downing Street parties before announcing yesterday that she would take a job as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
He said: “I do think it is a peculiar — let me put it that way — that the person who conducted the inquiry into what went on in No 10 and the Cabinet Office, who was presented to me as a person of complete political impartiality and absolutely no political axe to grind whatever, has just been appointed the chief of staff of the leader of the Labour Party.
“I mean, I make no comment about it except to say that I’m sure people may want to draw their own conclusions about the confidence they can place in her inquiry, or the motives behind the way she conducted her inquiry and her report . . . I think people may look at it in a different light.”