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Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson has released his defence to a parliamentary Privileges Committee investigation into whether he misled parliament when he denied parties had been held at No 10 Downing Street during Britain's COVID-19 lockdown.
- Mr Johnson is due to be questioned by MPs on Wednesday afternoon
- He says he told parliament what he believed to be true at the time
- Both he and Rishi Sunak have been fined for attending a party during the lockdown
Mr Johnson admitted he misled parliament when he gave an account to the House of Commons following media reports that several staff gatherings had been held during strict periods of lockdown, a scandal dubbed 'partygate'.
"I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged, that there was no party, and that no COVID rules were broken," Mr Johnson said in December 2021.
He issued an apology to his colleagues, but remained adamant the false statements were unintentional, rather than an attempt at a cover-up which would have been "senseless and immediately self-defeating."
"I accept that the House of Commons was misled by my statements that the Rules and Guidance had been followed completely at No. 10."
"That was not because I was trying to hide what I knew to be true, but because I said what I honestly believed at the time."
Mr Johnson claims he did not have the full story when he assured the House everything was above board.
"I did not know what the Metropolitan Police and Sue Gray would later uncover," he said.
"As soon as the Sue Gray investigation and the Metropolitan Police investigation had been concluded, I corrected the record.
"I believed – and I still believe – that this was the earliest opportunity at which I could make the necessary correction.
"It was not fair or appropriate to give a half-baked account, before the facts had been fully and properly established."
If Mr Johnson is found to have misled parliament by the Committee, his punishment could range from being asked to apologise, to outright suspension and loss of his London seat.
Mr Johnson's defence is a reply to allegations put forth by a subsequent investigation into the gatherings by London's Metropolitan Police and a parliamentary inquiry led by senior civil servant Sue Gray.
The investigations highlighted four gatherings throughout 2020 and one in 2021. One of those was a birthday party for Mr Johnson.
Mr Johnson's defence claimed the birthday party was sprung upon him and he had no hand in its organisation.
"No cake was eaten, and no-one even sang happy birthday," he said.
Both Mr Johnson and current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have previously been fined for their attendance of the party.
He said the other gatherings he attended were send-offs for departing staff and were deemed essential on the basis of staff morale.
"My view has always been that thanking and encouraging staff, and maintaining morale at No. 10, was absolutely essential for work purposes," he said.
Mr Johnson maintained he spent less than half an hour at each event, and that during his attendance the gatherings were within the rules. He conceded the gatherings may have developed past the point of acceptable after he left.
He pointed to the presence of the official Number 10 photographer as proof the gatherings were held with "innocent" intent.
"A suggestion that we would have held events which were obviously contrary to the Rules and Guidance, and allowed those events to be immortalised by the official photographer is implausible," he said.
A series of text messages between the then director of communications at Downing Street and another official from January 2021 were revealed earlier this month.
The conversation shows the two drafting reasonable descriptions for the events that do not breach the lockdown rules, and struggling to do so.
In his defence denying knowledge of any rule-breaking, Mr Johnson said the texts are "internal messages between advisers. There is no suggestion at all that these concerns were passed on to me".
The Sue Gray inquiry pointed to "failures of leadership and judgement in No. 10 and the Cabinet Office" for the culture that allowed the gatherings to take place.
Mr Johnson has been publicly critical of Ms Gray and the allegations put forth, particularly in recent weeks after it emerged she had been hired by Opposition Leader Keir Starmer as his Chief of Staff.
Ms Gray's involvement in the Johnson scandal has concluded, however Mr Johnson implied a political bias to her findings after learning of her new role.
The defence published comes ahead of Mr Johnson's scheduled appearance in front of the Committee on Wednesday.