UK Prime Minister Johnson ‘Apologizes’ for Attending Lockdown Party
UK’s Sky News: “Boris Johnson is now in the throes of the most acute political crisis of his premiership.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in trouble after revelations that he attended a party at his residence during the coronavirus lockdown. After weeks of controversy, Johnson finally admitted being at the event held in the garden of 10 Downing Street in May 2020.
The Downing Street drinks party was reportedly attended by some 40 people in flagrant violation of Johnson’s own COVID rules at the height of the nationwide lockdown.
On Wednesday, Johnson apologized in the parliament for attending the “bring your own booze.” He offered “heartfelt apologies” amid jeers and laughter from the members of the opposition parties.
Several senior lawmakers of Johnson’s party came out against him, with the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Douglas Ross, asking him to quit over the controversy. “The leader of the Scottish Conservatives has demanded that Boris Johnson resign despite the prime minister’s apology for attending a Downing Street drinks party during the lockdown, The Times of London reported Wednesday. The BBC also noted that “Johnson is facing calls from senior Tories to resign after he admitted attending a drinks party during lockdown.”
I don't think that a half apology between gritted teeth is enough @BorisJohnson.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) January 12, 2022
The UK news channel Sky News reported Johnson’s apology and the ensuing outrage over the revelations:
Boris Johnson is facing demands from Conservatives to resign after he confessed to attending a Downing Street garden drinks party during the UK’s first national lockdown. (…)
The calls for Mr Johnson to quit came after his House of Commons apology about the event failed to quell anger about the Downing Street “bring your own booze” bash on 20 May 2020. (…)
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday lunchtime, Mr Johnson admitted he went into the Number 10 garden “just after 6pm on 20 May 2020 to thank groups of staff” before going back into his office “25 minutes later”.
The prime minister told MPs he had “learned enough” about multiple claims of lockdown-breaching parties in Downing Street “to know there were things we simply did not get right”.
And he acknowledged the public “rage” about their sense that COVID rules were “not being properly followed by the people who make the rules”.
Sky News noted: “Since the pandemic began in early 2020, there have been several examples of politicians and officials breaking the rules and having to resign.”
The media reports commented on Johnson’s diminished support among the Conservative lawmakers in the parliament. “When he apologised for attending a lockdown-breaking party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020, Labour and the Scottish Nationalist Party heckled and sneered but his own MPs remained utterly still,” The Irish Times wrote.
Johnson, however, remains defiant and has vowed to stay in office despite mounting calls for him to resign. He has “decided to fight for his position on Wednesday afternoon and mobilised the cabinet to his defence, with ministers posting messages of support on social media,” the UK daily Independent commented. Johnson has a parliamentary majority of 80 seats, which he secured in the landslide victory on a pro-Brexit platform in the 2019 general election.
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Comments
It’d be more noteworthy if he apologized for lockdowns, period.
He should apologize for his hair.
The left wing media here is working over time to get rid of Boris. They couldn’t get rid of him before BREXIT…couldnt touch him after BREXIT but now they have their hook. So they are working over time!
I was of the opinion that Boris had become a bit of a limp wristed wet fish but suspect he was the only fucker standing in the way of yet another pointless fucking lockdown before Christmas.
Im just not sure who ever will eventually replace him will have the fucking balls to push back against “industrial science” and be able to oppose more lockdowns this year.
It’s relative though…. he was in a position to do MORE and didn’t. I’d give him a 0.5 out of 10 on the Thatcher Scale.
Not a single US Dem politician has done this in a public address in their governing seat of responsibility once despite numerous breaches. Not a single US Dem politician has called for the resignation of their hypocritical colleagues in public.
I’m aware that there are self-serving interests here but man. what it must be like to have a coalition government instead of two parties that function as mass hostage takers for the vast majority of the country.
The solidarity they display sure seems to reek of red commonality.
He doesn’t have a coalition. The Tories have a very large majority of their own.
Never apologize.
I had hopes for him when he became PM, but he’s just another elitist prat.
It’s ok for our leaders to party despite lockdown orders because they have natural impunity.
Although in this instance our ‘leader’ didn’t party. He popped out into the grounds of his office and/or the garden of his home, spoke to members of his staff for 25 minutes then went back inside.
None of which broke the law. The COVID related laws on gatherings do not apply to Number 10 or its grounds, as they’re a Crown property.
This is all a media and opposition frenzy with the Boris hating BBC doing everything they can to keep the story going and escalate it.
Meanwhile the leader of the opposition (Keir Starmer) illegally left the scene of an accident in which he apparently knocked someone off their bicycle, with whispers querying whether Starmer left because he was drunk at the time. Media coverage? Crickets. BBC website front-page articles? None.
Johnson’s willingness to impose his wife’s eco-lunacy on the country along with his inaction on borders, the way violent racists were allowed to riot with impunity, continual authoritarian policies, severely rising inflation, rising taxes and unwillingness to tell the EU to fuck off over Northern Ireland are all reasons to seek a change in Prime Minister.
Work colleagues meeting at work with a bottle of wine is not.