LONDON — A report into lockdown-breaching U.K. government parties says blame for a “culture” of rule-breaking in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office must rest with those at the top.
Senior civil servant Sue Gray’s long-awaited report was published Wednesday, and Johnson plans to address Parliament on its findings.
It said the “senior leadership team ... must bear responsibility” for a culture that allowed events to take place that “should not have been allowed to happen.”
Gray said there had been “failures of leadership and judgment in No. 10,” a reference to Johnson’s office.
She investigated 16 gatherings held while people in the U.K. were barred from socializing under coronavirus restrictions imposed by Johnson’s government.
A separate police investigation resulted in 83 people getting fined, including Johnson.
The scandal has led to calls for Johnson to resign. He has apologized but insisted he didn’t knowingly break the rules.
The British media and opposition politicians have found that hard to square with staff member’s accounts of “bring your own booze” parties and regular “wine time Fridays” in the prime minister’s 10 Downing St. office at the height of the pandemic.
Claims that Johnson and his staff enjoyed illegal office parties while millions in the country were prevented from seeing friends and family in 2020 and 2021 first surfaced late last year.
In his statement to Parliament on Wednesday, Johnson will have to explain why he told lawmakers previously that no parties were held in Downing Street and no rules were broken.
Critics, some of them inside Johnson’s Conservative Party, say the prime minister lied to Parliament, which is traditionally an offense that leads to the head of government’s resignation.
Johnson has clung on to power so far, partly because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine diverted public and political attention. Some Conservatives who considered seeking a no-confidence vote in their leader decided it would be rash to push Johnson out in the middle of the war, which is destabilizing Europe and fueling a cost-of-living crisis.
The prime minister got a further reprieve when the Metropolitan Police told him last week that he wouldn’t be getting any more fines even though he attended several events under investigation.
But Gray’s conclusions could revive calls from Conservative lawmakers for a no-confidence vote in the leader who won them a big parliamentary majority just over two years ago. Under party rules, such a vote is triggered if 15 percent of party lawmakers — currently 54 people — write letters calling for one.
If Johnson lost such a vote, he would be replaced as Conservative leader and prime minister. It’s unclear how many letters have been submitted so far.