It has been under fire from critics since Monday evening, January 10. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is accused of attending a party with 40 people, in Downing Street, in May 2020, while the country was still severely confined.
With our correspondent in London, Emeline Wine
The British Prime Minister has just apologize on Wednesday 12 January in Parliament. “ I wish to apologize. I know the anger of the British when they think the rules are not followed by those who set them “, said Boris Johnson in front of the deputies.
Sober costume, serious air, Boris Johnson assured he was considering attending a business meeting, this May 20, 2020 at the end of the day, when his secretary had invited a hundred employees to bring something for a drink, in the garden at 10 Downing Street to take advantage of the good weather.
I know millions of people across the country have made extraordinary sacrifices in the past 18 months. (…) I understand the rage they feel towards me and towards the government that I lead when they see that in Downing Street itself, the people who make the rules do not follow them themselves.
English Prime Minister Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson will not resign
” Looking back, I should’ve sent everyone back inside “, Admitted the Prime Minister, while stressing that the gathering respected” technically »Restrictions, since his residence is a place of work. A remark that provoked bursts of laughter on the opposition benches.
Labor leader Keir Starmer recalled this is the twelfth festive meeting reported to Downing Street during lockdowns and called on Boris Johnson to step down for violating restrictions and for lying to Parliament when he claimed last December ” that no restrictions had been violated “.
The head of government claims to take ” all his responsibilities »But will not resign, he awaits the conclusions of the internal investigation carried out by the senior official Sue Gray.
” Enough is enough “
Boris Johnson no longer seems to be immune from a vote of no confidence within his party. ” It is currently roaring with rumors through the media of a fed up. There are voices that publicly say that “enough is enough”, that the Prime Minister is not serious, that he takes the party and the country into the abyss, I think it is very serious », Analyzes Philippe Marlière, professor of political science at University College London, who recalls that Boris Johnson has yet a conservative room committed to his cause and to Brexit.
However, nothing has been done yet. For a motion of no confidence to be valid, it ” Conservative MPs need to collect signatures that they table in front of a committee within the Conservative Party and if the signatures are there and indeed there will be a possibility of challenging the Prime Minister and at that point Johnson could be overthrown. But it’s hard to know where we’re at because the count is kept secret He adds.
This scandal once again puts Boris Johnson in a very fragile position, especially since this new gap arouses a lot of anger within the British population, reports the professor.
On the one hand, you have a government that publishes these rules and then we learn that at the same time when the government was putting these rules in place, this government itself was organizing a drunken party with a hundred people, breaking all the rules. put in place at the time. So, indeed, this arouses popular indignation.
Philippe Marlière, professor of political science at University College London