After months of investigation, the Commons privileges committee has finally delivered its report into whether Boris Johnson lied to parliament over partygate.
What the report found
The committee - which is chaired by Harriet Harman but has a Conservative majority - concluded Johnson had deliberately misled MPs when he said no Covid rules were broken in No.10
The MPs found the former prime minister guilty of “repeated contempts”, not just for what he said about rule breaking on his watch, but how he reacted after receiving a copy of the report last week.
1. Deliberately misleading the House and the committee
The committee examined what Johnson told both the Commons and the committee about various gatherings in Downing Street while Covid restrictions were in place.
Johnson said that when he denied any rules had been broken, he sincerely believed that to be true.
But the MPs said this had “no reasonable basis in the rules or on the facts”.
They said: “We think it highly unlikely on the balance of probabilities that Mr Johnson, in the light of his cumulative direct personal experience of these events, and his familiarity with the rules and guidance as their most prominent public promoter, could have genuinely believed at the time of his statements to the House that the rules or guidance were being complied with.
“We think it just as unlikely he could have continued to believe this at the time of his evidence to our committee.”
They added: "The frequency with which he closed his mind to those facts and to what was obvious so that eventually the only conclusion that could be drawn was that he was deliberately closing his mind."
2. Breaching confidence
Having produced a draft report, the committee sent it to Johnson on June 8 for him to look at. He was ordered not to reveal what it said.
“It is a contempt of the House to reveal the contents of this document,” the committee told him.
Within 24 hours, Johnson said he would quit as an MP, revealed the contents of the letter he had received and accused the committee of mounting a "witch hunt".
3. Attacking the committee
In his resignation statement, Johnson launched a scathing attack on the committee.
“Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts. This is the very definition of a kangaroo court,” he said.
The report said this “impugned the committee, the integrity of its members, and the impartiality of its staff and advisers”.
“This attack on a committee carrying out its remit from the democratically elected House itself amounts to an attack on our democratic institutions,” the MPs said.
“We consider that these statements are completely unacceptable. In our view this conduct, together with the egregious breach of confidentiality, is a serious further contempt.”
4. ‘Campaign of abuse’
The report said allies of Johnson had engaged in the “personal abuse” of the MPs on the committee.
It said while he had initially told the committee he did not agree with the use of the terms “kangaroo courts” and “witch hunts”, he went on to use those exact phrases in his resignation statement.
The MPs said: “This leaves us in no doubt that he was insincere in his attempts to distance himself from the campaign of abuse and intimidation of committee members. This in our view constitutes a further significant contempt.”
What is the punishment?
If Johnson had not quit parliament, the committee said it would have recommended he be suspended from the Commons for 90 days.
If an MP is suspended for more than 10 days, a by-election in their seat is triggered if 10% of their constituents call for it.
The committee has also said Johnson should be denied an ex-MP’s parliamentary pass.
What has Johnson said?
He is not happy. In an angry statement released at the same time as the report, Johnson maintained his innocence, accusing the committee of a “final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination”.
“The committee now says that I deliberately misled the House, and at the moment I spoke I was consciously concealing from the House my knowledge of illicit events,” he said.
“This is rubbish. It is a lie. In order to reach this deranged conclusion, the Committee is obliged to say a series of things that are patently absurd, or contradicted by the facts.”
What next?
The committee’s report is just a recommendation. MPs are expected to vote on Monday on whether or not to accept its conclusi