Boris Johnson’s political career is done, how the newspapers reacted
The UK newspapers have reacted strongly to former prime minister Boris Johnson’s ongoing Partygate scandal. Last week, the Privileges Committee – a group made up of cross-party MPs – found that Boris Johnson had deliberately misled Parliament over gatherings at Downing Street during Covid restrictions.
Even Boris Johnson seems to have given up the Partygate fight – he knows his power is waning
Katy Balls – The Guardian
In response to their findings, Johnson quit as an MP and blamed everyone else for what his supporters called a ‘stitch-up’. On Monday 19th June, MPs overwhelmingly voted in support of the report’s findings, showing just how little support the former prime minister has left.
Recap – What is Partygate?
Partygate is a political scandal in the United Kingdom about gatherings of government and Conservative Party staff during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 when Covid restrictions were in place and most gatherings were banned.
Many of the parties took place at Downing Street, the Downing Street Garden and other government and Conservative party buildings.
The scandal drew widespread backlash from the media and the British public, and the Met Police issued 126 fixed penalty notices to 83 people, including the then PM Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie and Rishi Sunak, who at the time was Chancellor.
The scandal played a huge role in the downfall of Boris Johnson.
There were three official investigations:
- The Metropolitan Police opened its own investigation into potential breaches of COVID-19 regulations
A police inquiry, called Operation Hillman, was started into 12 gatherings on 8 different days, seven of which Boris Johnson was alleged to have attended. The Met issued 126 fixed penalty notices to 83 people, including the then PM Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie and Rishi Sunak.
- Civil Servant Sue Gray led a Cabinet Office inquiry
The Sue Gray report looked into 15 events on 12 dates between May 2020 and April 2021, all of which involved people gathering during Covid lockdowns. Boris Johnson attended eight of these. Her report described failures of leadership and judgment in No 10 and the Cabinet Office”. Gray wrote: “The events that I investigated were attended by leaders in government. Many of these events should not have been allowed to happen.”
- The Parliamentary Privileges Committee investigation into whether Johnson misled Parliament over Partygate
The Parliamentary Privileges Committee concluded Boris Johnson intentionally misled Parliament over Partygate and he had breached confidentiality requirements by criticising the Committee’s provisional findings when he resigned (he had an early draft of the report before it was officially released). The committee said he was complicit in a “campaign of abuse” against those investigating him.
The investigation was made up of cross-party MPs, with the majority being Tories.
Boris Johnson resigned as an MP as a result of the report.
There was a Commons debate on the report on 19 June 2023. The same day MPs voted 354 to 7 to accept its findings, which led to Johnson’s parliamentary pass being revoked.
‘Good riddance’
Plenty of front pages and editorials were relieved to see the back of Boris Johnson. Many questions if his political career is over for good, or if he’ll be waiting in the wings for a return.
For some of the papers, when Boris Johnson told supporters not to vote against the report, arguing it had no practical effect now he had resigned, but critics say it was an attempt to avoid exposing his diminished support among Tory MPs.
The Guardian says the Tory infighting over Boris Johnson has reached a new level of intensity, with his supporters being told to hang their heads in shame.
In response to the “Covid chaos”, the Daily Mirror combined three stories: David Cameron’s evidence of the Covid inquiry on the UK’s pandemic preparedness, PM Sunak’s decision not to take part in the parliamentary vote on the Privileges Committee report into Boris Johnson, and the news that police may issue further fines in connection with a video showing a party at Tory HQ in December 2020. “Shame on You” is the headline.
“Even Boris Johnson seems to have given up the Partygate fight – he knows his power is waning,” says the Guardian’s opinion piece.
The Independent calls the vote a ‘humiliation’ whilst an opinion article in the paper turns its attention to Rishi Sunak. The PM has been accused of being weak on plenty of occasions – especially when it comes to his former boss. “Boris’s hooliganism is history, but Rishi’s cowardly no-show was an own-goal.”
‘A stitch-up’
Not many papers were sympathetic to the ongoing Partygate scandal. But the former prime minister still has his loyal followers – mainly in the form of the Daily Express and The Sun.
The Express says most of Boris Johnson’s allies and their readers think the Privileges Committee report is a ‘stitch-up’ and a ‘witch hunt.’ In its many articles covering the latest in the scandal, the paper says Boris was ‘forced out’ and his allies are ‘fuming.’
The front page kept its coverage of the findings small, but claimed “our ex-PM didn’t deserve this final insult.”
That’s more coverage than what The Sun offered up. The story doesn’t feature at all on the front page and is buried deep on the newspaper’s website. “Imagine Boris Johnson with the populist appeal and none of the chaos? Now that would be worth voting for,” says an opinion article.
The Daily Mail – another pro-Johnson paper – kept the story off its front page and does not feature in a prominent position on the website. The Mail and the Sun had previously been big supporters of Boris Johnson, but since the Partygate allegations started, their support has been quieter. The papers don’t defend the former PM the way they used to … they just ignore the story instead!