Ten days after Boris Johnson abruptly quit Britain’s Parliament, his former colleagues delivered a stinging rebuke to the former prime minister, overwhelmingly ratifying a report that concluded he deliberately misled lawmakers about lockdown-breaking parties held in Downing Street during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Johnson resigned his parliamentary seat on June 9 after seeing an early draft of the findings of the yearlong investigation. He angrily dismissed the committee as a “kangaroo court,” even though a majority of its members was drawn from his own party.
The committee proposed revoking his parliamentary pass and said that, had he not already quit, it would have recommended a 90-day suspension from Parliament.
As a practical matter, the Commons’ acceptance of the report will have a limited effect on Mr. Johnson. Losing his pass simply means he must be accompanied by another member if he wants to enter Parliament’s buildings. But symbolically, it represents a thunderous repudiation of Mr. Johnson by his former peers.
The persistent focus on the fallout from the scandal has been a political headache for Mr. Sunak. He now faces several difficult tests of his government’s popularity in elections to replace Mr. Johnson and a handful of other colleagues in the constituencies they represented.
One ally of Mr. Johnson, Nigel Adams, resigned after failing to secure a seat in the House of Lords; a second who is in the same situation, Nadine Dorries, announced that she would quit but has not done so yet.
Another Conservative lawmaker, David Warburton, stepped down after being suspended over allegations of sexual misconduct. Mr. Warburton claimed he was denied a fair hearing by a parliamentary watchdog looking into the claims against him.
To add to Mr. Sunak’s problems, the police have said they will review a newly published video, obtained by The Daily Mirror, that appeared to show a Conservative Party campaign team drinking and dancing at a Christmas party, at a time when pandemic restrictions were in force. The police had said that a previously published photo of the same event represented insufficient evidence to prosecute.
Around two dozen people were reported to be at the party, including Shaun Bailey, who campaigned unsuccessfully to become London mayor and who was nominated for elevation to the House of Lords by Mr. Johnson as part of his resignation honors list.
Mr. Bailey left before the video was taken, though one aide who received a lesser honor on the same list, Ben Mallet, does make an appearance. Opposition politicians have called for both men to be deprived of their honors.
