Why has former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned as an MP?

What is the committee investigating Johnson?

It is the Commons Privileges Committee, which is similar to the Privileges Committee of Lok Sabha in the Indian Parliament. It is a cross-party committee of seven members. Four of the members are from Johnson’s Conservative Party, two are from the opposition Labour, including Chairwoman Harman, and one member is from the Scottish National Party (SNP).

On April 21 last year, the House of Commons passed a motion calling for Johnson to be investigated by the committee for having misled the House in his statements about the so-called ‘Partygate’ scandal — involving allegations about the breach of lockdown rules at 10 Downing Street — and whether that amounted to contempt of Parliament.

The Committee started to invite evidence from the summer of 2022, and published an interim report in March 2023.

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Committee said the panel will “meet on Monday (June 12) to conclude the inquiry and to publish its report promptly”, The Guardian reported.

What is known of the Committee’s findings so far?

British media were reporting that the Committee has likely recommended Johnson’s suspension from Parliament for a period longer than 10 days, which would mean he loses his seat, for which a by-election must then be held. Johnson seems to have pre-empted that situation by resigning after seeing the draft report.

Reacting to Johnson’s statement, the Committee spokesperson said “The committee has followed the procedures and the mandate of the House at all times and will continue to do so.

“Mr Johnson has departed from the processes of the House and has impugned the integrity of the House by his statement.”

And what has Johnson actually said?

In his resignation statement, Johnson said the Privileges Committee had made it clear to him “that they are determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of Parliament”.

Johnson has earlier accepted that he did mislead Parliament about the parties, but he insisted that he did not do so deliberately — he had given those earlier assurances “in good faith”, he had said in a long defence of his position published in March.

In his statement of Friday, Johnson said the Committee had insisted on disbelieving him despite knowing “perfectly well” that he had earlier told Parliament only what he “believed sincerely to be true”.

He wrote: “They (the Committee) have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.

“They know perfectly well that when I spoke in the Commons, I was saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like any other minister. They know that I corrected the record as soon as possible; and they know that I and every other senior official and minister — including the current Prime Minister and then occupant of the same building, Rishi Sunak — believed that we were working lawfully together…

“I did not lie, and I believe that in their hearts, the Committee know it. But they have wilfully chosen to ignore the truth, because from the outset, their purpose has not been to discover the truth…

“Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts.”

So what happens now?

A by-election for Uxbridge and South Ruislip in Greater London, the seat Johnson won in 2015 and 2019, is triggered immediately.

In his statement, Johnson said he had written to his Association in Uxbridge and South Ruislip to say that he was “stepping down forthwith and triggering an immediate by-election”.

There will be a by-election for another seat as well — Mid Bedfordshire, whose MP Nadine Dorries, former Culture Secretary and an ally of Johnson’s, also stood down on Friday. Hours before Johnson’s statement, Dorries posted on Twitter that she was quitting “with immediate effect”.

What exactly is the Partygate scandal?

The Partygate scandal goes back to November 30, 2021, when The Daily Mirror newspaper published a report which revealed that Christmas parties took place in government offices, including 10 Downing Street, in December 2020, when London was under a lockdown due to COVID-19 and such gatherings were prohibited.

It was initially believed that two or three alleged lockdown parties had taken place. But once the media began scouring, it emerged that as many as about 15 such illicit events had been organised. Subsequently, police in London got involved and after its investigation, it fined 83 people, including Johnson.

A report published by The Guardian said, “The details of these “parties” caused outrage; an official report noted that several of the events were drunken and rowdy. At one leaving-do there was raucous karaoke, someone was sick and there was a fight. At a Christmas party, red wine was splattered on a wall.”

Does this mean the end of Johnson’s political career?

In his resignation statement, Johnson made it clear he still hopes to make a comeback. He said, “It is very sad to be leaving parliament — at least for now”. But observers suggest that even if Johnson returns as an MP, it’s unlikely that he would ever become the leader of the Tories again.

The Guardian in another report noted that although the former PM remains quite popular among the loyal Tory voters — 64 per cent of them favour him, as per a poll — he has lost the support of thousands of former Labour voters, who had helped win the 2019 national elections. Moreover, several other polls have found that voters don’t trust Johnson anymore as they refused to accept his version of social gatherings at Downing Street during the pandemic.

“But despite his reputation for staging gravity-defying political comebacks, Tory MPs and others from across Westminster really do believe that it is over for Boris Johnson this time.,” the report said.