Prime minister Boris Johnson and chancellor Rishi Sunak have been issued with fixed penalty notice fines by police investigating breaches of Covid law.
Both men faced immediate calls to resign from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson. Both Starmer and Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called for a recall of parliament from its Easter break for a vote of no confidence in the PM.
Downing Street said that the PM’s fine related to the surprise 56th birthday party thrown for him by wife Carrie in the No 10 Cabinet Room on 19 June 2020, when a loyalist MP said Johnson was “ambushed with a cake”. It is thought that Mr Sunak’s penalty results from the same event. Mrs Johnson is also facing a fine, a spokesperson confirmed.
The fines are among at least 30 imposed over the past fortnight and announced today by the Metropolitan Police, bringing the total number of penalties in relation to lockdown-breaching parties in Downing Street and Whitehall to more than 50. No detail of the size of the fines or the other receipients of FPNs have been released.
Today’s developments are not likely to mark an end of the Partygate investigation for the prime minister, who is alleged to have been involved in at least three further lockdown-breaking events. Police said they were continuing to assess “significant amounts of investigative material” which could lead to further fines.
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Mr Johnson is the first UK prime minister to be penalised for breaking the law while serving at 10 Downing Street.
News of his fine sparked renewed calls for him to apologise for misleading the Commons by insisting last December that Covid rules were followed at No 10.
The prime minister told the Commons in December that he had been “repeatedly assured there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken”.
And Mr Sunak assured MPs on 21 November 2021: “No, I did not attend any parties.”
Ms Davidson said: “The PM introduced liberty-curtailing rules for public health reasons. This caused huge hardship for those separated from ill or dying loved ones. He then broke the rules he imposed on the country and lost the moral authority to lead. He should go.”
While backbench Tory critics held back from calling for the prime minister’s head at a time of crisis over the Ukraine war, there was a notable absence of Conservative MPs coming forward to defend the PM in the wake of his fine.
Loyalist MP Michael Fabricant said that “when the prime minister told the House he didn’t think he was breaking any law, I don’t think he did think he was breaking any law”.
And Mr Johnson’s parliamentary private secretary James Duddridge said in a tweet that the PM had “apologised and accepted responsibility,” adding: “He is the right person to lead the party and the country. We need to be united in our resolve and move forward under his leadership.”
But in the hours after the news broke there were no public statements of support from members of Mr Johnson’s cabinet apart from Nadine Dorries, who tweeted: “PM is at his best when delivering on the priorities of the British people which he will continue to do.”
Many Tories were holding fire to see how badly the scandal affects the party’s showing in crucial local elections being held across Britain on 5 May, or until the publication in full of Whitehall mandarin Sue Gray’s report following the completion of the Met inquiry.
Representatives of families who lost members in the Covid pandemic said that there was “no way” that either the PM or Mr Sunak could continue in office.
Lobby Akinnola, spokesman for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said it was “unbelievably painful” to think of the PM breaking his own lockdown rules to party at a time when loved ones were dying and relatives were attending funerals limited to a handful of attendees.
“The fact that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak then lied about it, and would have continued to do so if the police hadn’t intervened, is truly shameless,” he said. “They broke the law. But even worse, they took us all for mugs.
“When we met the PM in the Downing Street garden – the same one where they had these parties – he looked us in the eyes and said he had done everything he could to save our loved ones. We now know that that was a lie.
“There is simply no way either the prime minister or chancellor can continue. Their dishonesty has caused untold hurt to the bereaved.”
Confirming the fines, a No 10 spokesperson said: “The prime minister and the chancellor of the Exchequer have today received notification that the Metropolitan Police intend to issue them with fixed penalty notices.”
And a spokesperson later added: “The Met Police have now explained that the FPN issued to the PM will be in relation to the following incident: ‘On 19th June 2020 at the Cabinet Room 10 Downing Street between 1400 and 1500 you participated in a gathering of two or more people indoors in the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street’.”
Sir Keir said: “The British public made the most unimaginable, heart-wrenching sacrifices, and many were overcome by guilt. Guilt at not seeing elderly relatives, not going to funerals or weddings, or even seeing the birth of their own children.
“But the guilty men are the prime minister and the chancellor. They’ve dishonoured all of that sacrifice, they’ve dishonoured their office.
“This is the first time in the history of our country that a prime minister has been found to be in breach of the law, and then he lied repeatedly to the public about it. Britain deserves better, they have to go.”
As well as the birthday party, Mr Johnson was present at a “bring your own booze” gathering in the garden of No 10 on 20 May 2020 and took part in a Christmas Zoom quiz on 15 December 2020, when he was photographed flanked by two staff members.
It is also thought he may have been present at an “Abba party” held by wife Carrie in their flat above 11 Downing Street to celebrate the departure of former aide Dominic Cummings on 13 November 2020.
A Treasury source previously said that the chancellor attended the birthday event by accident, having gone to the Cabinet Room in No 10 expecting a Covid strategy meeting. It is the only event which he attended out of the 12 under investigation by the Met’s Operation Hillman.
Penalties for Covid breaches were set at ￡100 at the highpoint of the pandemic, but could be doubled with subsequent offences up to a maximum of ￡6,400. Attendance at a large gathering could attract a fine of ￡400 on a first offence and organisers of a large event faced maximum penalties of ￡10,000.
Prospects of an imminent revolt by Tory MPs to oust the PM seemed slight, with arch-critic Sir Roger Gale, who previously submitted a letter of no confidence in Johnson, saying that it would not be right to change leader while war is raging in Ukraine.
“I don’t think the PM will lead us into the next election,” said the veteran Conservative MP. “There will come a time the PM will have to face this, but that time is not now.
“We are in the middle of an international crisis and I am not prepared to give Vladimir Putin the comfort of thinking that we are about to unseat the prime minister of the United Kingdom and destabilise the coalition against Putin.
“This is going to have to wait until we hav dealt with the main crisis which is Ukraine and the Donbas.”
Sir Roger was among around a dozen Tory MPs to declare publicly that they had submitted confidence letters at the height of the Partygate scandal in February. Others are believed to have done so privately, but the total never reached the threshold of 54 needed to trigger a vote on Mr Johnson’s leadership, and some letters have been withdrawn following the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
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Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, who withdrew his call for the PM to go in the wake of the Russian invasion, said: “In the middle of war in Europe, when Vladimir Putin is committing war crimes and the UK is Ukraine’s biggest ally, as President (Volodymyr) Zelensky said at the weekend, it wouldn’t be right to remove the prime minister at this time.”